We can hear their cries.
Even see their peril in almost real-time.
And still be no closer to reaching the wounded and the pained quickly
enough.
From minutes after this week’s powerful earthquake brought down scores of
buildings across Haiti, outsiders — concerned strangers, family members,
mainstream news organizations and even governments — have tracked the
disaster through social media sites.
Even as they’ve struggled to survive, witnesses have called out to us.
From his Twitter account, soon after the disaster, Carel Pedre, a DJ in
Haiti, told followers: “WE NEED HELPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!”
And moments before, in a play-by-play of a population’s fight for survival,
he typed on his mobile device: “After shock every 10 mns! I can’t stay where
I am! I have to be in a safe place!”
On his same Twitter feed, just before the quake hit, the lines were about
new music and every-day gossip.
But in the early hours of the disaster, the lines sent out on networking
sites, along with frantic but riveting pictures taken with cel phones and
posted on sites like TwitPic, became the most important link in the human
connection to those beyond the rubble.
In fact, rather than through traditional means, the earliest appeals for
financial aid to help the people of Haiti have come through sites like
Twitter and Facebook.
Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean — of The Fugees — sent out an appeal on
Twitter before most aid agencies could find out whether their people in
Haiti were safe or not.
The lightening quick reflexes and far reach of social media are reasons aid
agencies themselves have tapped in online. Catholic Relief Services is using
Skype and Facebook in their efforts while Oxfam is making use of the audio
blog site ipadio, so their people can give live updates as they try to reach
into the disaster zone.
The role of social media in reaching out beyond disasters is now well
established. It happened during last year’s earthquake in China. It’s led
the way in covering protests in Iran. Every ordinary person with a cellphone
has become correspondents to the world.
Their words and images provide a narrative to suffering, including this
dispatch posted by Twitter user Frederic Dupoux, around 2 a.m. in Haiti:
“Everyone camping in the streets of port-au-prince sleeping under stars to
wake up from an awful nightmare.”
The power of social media has helped to create a lifeline in such disasters.
But it’s also, as the world makes it’s way in, a reminder of how many
torturous minutes come between a disaster and actually getting to those who
are calling out for help.
