Uttarakhand: Google helps people search

Google's technology came in handy for friends and relatives of several hapless people who had been trapped in the Uttarakhand flash floods last month.

Google's technology came in handy for friends and relatives of several hapless people who had been trapped in the Uttarakhand flash floods last month. Tech tools from the Internet giant such as the Person Finder and Crisis Map provided specific information about stranded people across the state along with information about conditions of roads, relief camps and medical centres in the state.

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"Google Person Finder helped people reunite with missing kin, in part because many Googlers spent hours entering details of missing persons from documents provided by rescue agencies," said a senior executive at Google. As more number of people regularly updated details the entries on the tool swelled to more than 23,500 from 5,000 entries a couple of weeks ago.

The crisis map for Uttarakhand collected and regularly updated specific information about stranded people, relief camps, road information, medical centres, cleared rescue zones, contact information for control rooms and donation dropoff shelters.