NEW DELHI/LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – German development worker Caroline Siebald and her boyfriend Charles Gertler, an American glaciologist, were on a rafting trip in Nepal when the earthquake struck and initially panicked about how to let their families know they were safe.
After about 30 attempts, Gertler, 25, managed to get a phone call through to his mother in Massachusetts in the United States, and she registered them as safe on Facebook’s “Safety Check”. Within minutes, their friends and families saw the news.
“I had messages from my best friends in kindergarten saying ‘Oh my God, I’m so glad you’re alive’”, Siebald, 22, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
From migrant Nepali domestic workers in India to IT professionals in Brazil, people across the globe have taken to social media sites such as Facebook and Google to look for missing relatives and pass on news of survival in Nepal.
In India, which has the highest population of Nepali migrants in the world, many have been frantically trying to phone home, horrified as they watch television pictures showing bodies being pulled out of the rumble of collapsed buildings.
“I don’t know anything about my son who is in a village with my parents far from Kathmandu. I am calling on the phone all the time, but I can’t get through. I can’t eat, sleep or work,” said Usha Tamang, a nanny of Nepali nationality working in Delhi.
Elsewhere in the world, others are searching for relatives and friends who were visiting the Himalayan nation during its peak tourism season.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was one of the first agencies to launch an online platform to trace the thousands of people who are missing.
The family tracing service publishes lists of names and information on people who are safe and well, hospital patients, people who are looking for relatives, sought persons or those who are dead.
Individuals can access these lists directly on the webpage to look for the names of their family members or register themselves as safe or in danger.
Facebook has also launched its Safety Check tool for Nepal, drawing praise from Facebook members.
