How Social Media Is Helping Nepal Rebuild After Two Big Earthquakes

Nepalese women look at floral tributes placed in memory of victims killed in the earthquake, at Basantapur Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal, Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Nepalese women look at floral tributes placed in memory of victims killed in the earthquake, at Basantapur Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal, Thursday, May 7, 2015. Niranjan Shrestha/AP

With little disaster infrastructure in place, groups of Nepalis, foreign aid workers and academics, and the country’s diaspora, moved swiftly to organize an Internet-driven response to the disasters.

After the earthquake struck Nepal on April 25, killing over 8,000 people and leaving more than 250,000 homeless, the small Himalayan nation—among the poorest in world—was left scrambling to respond. And with little disaster infrastructure in place, groups of Nepalis, foreign aid workers and academics, and the country’s diaspora, moved swiftly to organise an internet-driven response. That effort is still ongoing.

In the immediate aftermath of the first earthquake, social media sputtered with sporadic safety reports and concerns. Facebook activated its Safety Check feature giving quick safety status updates, but information was initially slow and Nepal’s political leadership largely quiet.

After two days or so, Facebook and Twitter exploded. Requests for help started inundating social media feeds. “300 people are stranded on the hill opposite last resort,”…. “4000 people in Kavre need tents and blankets,”…”Trapped people badly need food and tents in Sitapaila,”… “Muchchok, Gorkha is devastated, all homes collapsed.”

Saroj Karki, 23, who founded a blood donation group Youth for Blood in 2011, immediately transformed his team into a social media-driven relief vehicle: the Rapid Response Team. He began fielding digital requests from Nepalis—inside and outside the country—who couldn’t contact family and friends due to overwhelmed phone networks. They started a texting app for receiving earthquake updates (still important as large aftershocks continue) and shared it via Facebook.

The team received 300 texts in 36 hours and over 8,500 hits on their site, Karki said. And while they couldn’t keep track of exactly how many calls they received from people searching for friends and family but the team’s made at least 1,000 calls to track people down since the first earthquake.

A similar volunteer group called Sankalpa had been using third-party mobile messaging service, Sparrow SMS, to text urgent blood needs pre-quake. The same technology was converted to a texting app for urgent rescue needs. The text reports, alongside Tweets and Facebook posts, were then compiled into one relief map. Sparrow has received about 1,000 texts, which were made into 350 reports.

Sorting it out

Another mapping exercise was underway at Kathmandu Living Labs, a Kathmandu-based non-profit tech company, which used open data and tools like OpenStreetMap to track all kinds of development issues in Nepal. They, too, swiftly transitioned into relief mode, coordinating a team of volunteers to collect Facebook posts and Tweets into one organized quake map. This was then shared with a clutch of relief groups and the Nepal Army.

Many of the posts were first organized on a Facebook page—Nepal Earthquake Relief Volunteers—created by Barbara Grossman, a 30-year-old American who left Nepal two days before the first earthquake.

Despite jammed networks, many could still post on Facebook, but those on the ground had little capacity to collate and arrange the large amounts of information coming in. 

“It became very clear there was just total confusion because of the inability of the cellular networks to handle the traffic,” she explained.

So, Grossman, who just finished a PhD in sociology at UC Boulder, made a page to focus only on relief supply and demand information. Then, she put together a team of administrators—a group of six volunteers from Nepal, the US, and Canada—to help edit and update it.

Three days after the page opened, they had 129 posts that reached some 50,000 people on Facebook. Then, a day later, on April 29, the group coordinated 1,500 tents to Sindhupalchowk and 400 to Dolakha, two of the most severely affected rural districts. Grossman said the page’s posts had reached 200,000 people by May 3.

Making it work

But with just about 40% of the country online, the utility of social media is typically limited outside urban population centres. Still, those in the hinterland can send a text to someone in the city, who can then post it on their Facebook wall, where someone else can post it to a coordination group. Finally, a volunteer can enter it on a relief map.

It may seem like a tenuous chain but it does seem to have worked till the mapping stage. The more difficult part, volunteers agree, is ensuring the physical relief arrives in the areas shown in the maps.

“Crisis mapping,” as it’s termed, gained traction during the 2010 Haiti earthquake, explained Brian Tomaszewski, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology who studies mapping technology for disaster relief. “Similar to Nepal you had a huge disaster in a poor developing country and everyone in the world wants to help out,” he said.

And what was a somewhat “free-form” movement five years ago—with individual volunteers mapping without much coordination—has since been refined, and crowdmapping tools like those used by Kathmandu Living Labs and Sankalpa help limit inaccurate reports. But “with any of this crowdsource stuff, it’s an issue of credibility and reliability,” Tomaszewski said.

Then, there is the question of how much impact these groups actually have on the ground. But with Nepal’s government authorities struggling to cope, volunteers like 34-year-old Shitu Rajbhandari, who helps the Kathmandu Living Labs’ project, argue that every little bit counts. Even ensuring that 20 pieces of important supplies like tarps can be procured and delivered.

“It might be a drop in the ocean,” said Rajbhandari, “but it’s still a drop.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.