OTTAWA — The search for family and friends missing after Tuesday’s earthquake in Haiti is ballooning on social networking websites like Facebook, where tens of thousands are posting pictures of people they’re trying to find.
A Canadian-based Facebook group called “EARTHQUAKE HAITI” has drawn more than 130,000 members since it was launched on Tuesday.
Family and friends have submitted thousands of photographs to the group’s homepage.
The photo pages are reminiscent of the massive billboards of photos that ringed the World Trade Center site in New York after the 9/11 attacks.
Michel Dulyx, 20, a Haitian-born Canadian in Montreal, created the page within an hour after the earthquake because he was trying to find friends and family in Port-au-Prince.
“I knew that the communication in Haiti was really bad so I started this group to find out how were my friends, father and family who are living there,” said Dulyx. “I just told people to write if they were OK and the group went up and up.”
The page has now taken on a life of its own.
Some of the photos are of entire families who have gone missing; others are of children or grandparents, and most contain messages asking for someone, anyone, to contact them by phone, e-mail or Facebook if they see the people who are missing.
The Facebook page’s wall is acting as a real-time wire service with messages that range from cries for help from within Haiti, to donation offers, to information-gathering websites and even more photos requesting help to find those missing since the quake struck.
