Since Friday the 11th , Japan has been stricked by disaster after disaster. First the 8.9-magnitude earthquake, which also caused a tsunami and now the people in Japan are struggling with a possible nuclear disaster and terrible cold. The authorities have identified 8,133 dead people and more than 12,000 people are still missing.
While the earthquake destroyed the electricity supplies and shut down two nuclear power plants, Internet availabilty stays practically unaffected. This allows victems of the earthquake to connect with friends and families by using social media to ensure their conditions and whereabouts.
Social media not only help the earthquake victems to connect with their family and friends, it is also a medium to raise money for the victems. Like my collegae Inge Haagmans mentioned, Groupon launched a special webpage where people can donate money to the Red Cross.
Besides that Twitter is also used to inform the people in Japan about the latest developments. Wednesday, the Japanese prime minister opened a twitter account in English to inform people about evacuations, press conferences and other developments. In the first couple of hours, the account gathered 7,000 followers and at the moment, more than 15,000 tweeps are following @JPN_PMO, which translates tweets of the Japanese disaster information account @Kantei_Saigai.
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