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IT and Natural Disasters
rikomatic writes "The Asian tsunami in December has dramatically shown how much SMS, email and the web are now indispensible parts of disaster recovery. The folks at the Digital Divide Network have organized a virtual conference on 'How New Media and the Internet are Reshaping Tsunami Relief Efforts' on Wednesday, Jan 12 at 10am, EST. Among the featured speakers will be Dina Mehta, co-founder of the Southeast Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog. In the hours following the tsunami, she and a group of South Asian bloggers created the volunteer-driven web portal for tsunami relief news and resources. Beyond using IT to coordinate post-disaster relief efforts, early warning is another critical need. Hopefully the UN's World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan later this month will address the IT infrastructure needed to make sure that people get advance warning before the next natural disaster strikes."
I'm sure there are people who need to look at that info more than we do.
You know what?
All other efforts will be in vain. That was the real tragedy in the Tsunami- and it's the reason why a similar event won't cause this large loss of life in the Pacific. We've already got the instruments needed to detect an earthquake as it happens anywhere in the world- the next step is where we failed. There should have been a major warning given out to every government, every police station, every military installation in the area that an earthquake had already happened and to get people away from the seashore.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
SMSs can make it over a patchy network when voice calls will not. It also allows easier cataloging and management of multiple nodes. Instead of having a person to speak to every remote outpost a computer can aggregate status reports, help requests and so on.
I disagree, much of the worlds population lives on coastal areas or inland but below or slightly above sea level. Nearly every country with a coastal border can be affected. LA, San Diego on the west coast of the US would suffer enormous casulties, for those in canada, Vancouver & Victoria. The east coast is just as bad. These are only two major cities in each country. Aside from human casulties think what this kind of event could do to your countries economy. All that aside, the tsunami was a result of an earth quake, which as we know can affect nearly every inland place in the world that is near a fault line.
piss off
IT and communications are important to the rescue and recovery effort, but privacy is just as important. There have been reports of missing Swedes having their homes burglarized and the families of missing people being contacted by scammers. It's sick how these criminals would take advantage of other people's misery.
My first thought was: Maybe this disaster was needed to update disaster recovery around other areas of the world. But then I realized something: It's rather that mankind is shortsighted when dealing with new technologies, disasters (and everything else).
Like, while the media and biz ppl were focused on porn sites, businesses, etc, the less favored countries couldn't get a chance to use this technology in their favor.
Ironically, the internet was originally designed as a disaster-proof (specifically, nuke-proof) network.
It's not the internet that's important, it's communication. My question is, is all this mass communication helping us as a race or conditioning us to get our answers from outside ourselves, making us so dependent on it that we can no longer think for ourselves? Am I the only one who has noticed the decline in the quality of modern writing in contrast to the writings of, say, the 19th century?
Strong local men who care and are willing to use their muscle to deliver the goods, clear the way. Talk about the merits of email in this endeavour are just silly.
A bit offtopic but I would like to ask this question to fellow /. readers anyway. Technology no doubt has helped in the relief efforts but had technology really helped in preventing parts of the disaster. For instance, more lives could have been saved if the people in the coastal villages would have heard the warning issued by the government. Unfortnately, these poor people didn't have the money to buy a radio or TV. So isn't it economical reforms that should come first?!
SMS? That has got to be the slowest way to cordinate anything... EVER.
Cellphone network operators can broadcast one SMS simultaneously to all cellphones in an area. If they had broadcast a tsunami warning by SMS right after the earthquake, a huge number of people would have been saved. Not only rich people with cellphones would be saved, since they would spread the warning to people around them, and those in turn would spread the warning further.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
fuh.
I live in Vancouver so everytime something like this happens, the paper goes into a huge panic. The fact is that places like Port Alberni, Uclulet and Port Hardy would get hammered. Vancouver and Victoria are both very sheltered and would likely experience a 1-3m wave (similar to a ferry's wake). In addition, the BC coastline is relatively steep which greatly mitigates any potential damage both by keeping the wave from rising and by preventing it from getting very far inshore. We have a lot more to fear from a warm rain in March than almost any tsunami.
"It's old and not good enough anymore."
Not good enough to make contact with someone on the other side of the *planet* with a radio made of 1930s technology and 40 feet of wire? One of the advantages of ham is that it's simple. You could probably disassemble a random TV or VCR to make a transmitter, hook it up to your home's aluminum rain gutters and a car battery, and contact someone thousands of miles away (i.e., someone outside of the disaster area that can send help). Just try that with Wifi, where you're lucky to get a signal a miles or two direct line-of-sight (no trees or buildings) with custom-built high-gain antennas that are not likely to exist after a disaster -- and who's going to be on the other end with another high-gain antenna to make the link? Nobody.
"and have it connect to the net."
Dude, the 'net is going to be *inoperative* in your area after a disaster.
Ham radio may seem like stone age technology in the face of WiFi and gigabit routers, but that's not what it's for. It's for reliable long distance slow-speed communication, not short range high-speed communications.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'