Pakistan has been struck by the worst flooding in its recorded history. The latest estimate of people affected by the flood exceeds 14 million - more than the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
While we recognize that it is just one effort of many, Google is also trying to help with disaster relief by putting our technology to use (official Google blog post).
We've created a crisis response page (Urdu) that hosts a variety of tools and compiles information about the disaster, including the latest news from local media sources, any available satellite imagery of the affected areas, and ways to donate to verified NGOs supporting the relief effort. It can also be accessed from the Google.com.pk homepage.
For those concerned about loved ones, the Pakistan Person Finder Tool can be used to submit or search for information about individuals who may have been affected. Similarly, the Pakistan Resource Finder Tool helps disseminate updated information about health facility services, including doctors, equipment and beds available, which may change rapidly during the disaster. These tools are available in English and Urdu. We encourage organizations and media sites to embed the gadgets on their sites and help spread the word. (Instructions on embedding are listed below.)
In addition, we've made an initial monetary donation of $250,000 to immediately aid in relief efforts. We are continuing to explore what tools and imagery we can provide that will be helpful and will be posting updates to the Pakistan disaster response page:
Embedding Instructions for Person Finder and Resource Finder:
Person Finder
Copy and paste the following HTML code to put this tool on your site:
<iframe
src="http://pakistan.person-finder.appspot.com/?small=yes"
width=350 height=300 frameborder=0
style="border: dashed 2px #77c"></iframe>
Resource Finder
Copy and paste the following HTML code to put this tool on your site:
<iframe
src="http://pakistan.resource-finder.appspot.com/?iframe=yes"
width="950" height="495" scrolling="no"
frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"
style="border: 1px solid black"></iframe>
Resource Finder a new tool to help disseminate updated information about which services various health facilities offer. It provides a map with editable records to help relief workers maintain up-to-date information on the services, doctors, equipment and beds available at neighboring health facilities so that they can efficiently arrange patient transfers. We normally wouldn’t release the tool so quickly, but decided to make an early release version of Resource Finder available for supporting relief efforts in Pakistan. This is the first time the tool is being launched during a disaster situation so we’ll be working closely with NGOs to understand its usefulness and will iterate accordingly. As a volunteer, you or any NGO can contribute to this tool by adding new resources and/or editing/updating already existing ones.
Another great example of how NGOs are bringing transparency to donors & efficiency in actual delivery of their relief efforts is Bacha Khan Trust Educational Fund (wait for a while for the page to load fully). They have embedded Google Maps on their website displaying their relief activities & the geography covered.
Hope this helps.
From: Badar Khushnood (بدر خوشنود)
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