Thai Floods Show How Powerful Twitter Has Become

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HEADLINE MAKER

How a tweet in time can save lives

By Asina Pornwasin

The Nation on Sunday

The recent floods show how powerful -- and useful -- microblogging site Twitter has become

Thailand has been affected by floods several times over its long history but rarely, if ever, have the waters risen quite so quickly and inundated so many parts of the country at the same time. The crisis also led to a new phenomenon in terms of how breaking news was managed, with Twitter emerging as the most effective communication channel among people in the country.

The first to make the headlines was Nattakul Yamprasert (@capitellum), a doctor at Nakhon Ratchasima’s Maharaj Hospital, who sent a 140-character Twitter message informing people outside the province that water from the Lamtakong River had flooded Maharaj Hospital’s emergency room to a depth of 60 centimetres. Doctors, nurses and other medical staff, he added, had urgently moved equipment and evacuated patients to the upper floors.

Nattakul registered with Twitter a couple of years back but did not tweet often until last month when his hospital faced severe flooding and he was trapped in the facility along with many patients. At that time, people outside the hospital had no idea was it was like inside but thanks to Nattakul’s messages, the real-time flood situation in Maharaj Hospital was quickly and widely acknowledged, both by his followers and the official news media.

“I didn’t think to use Twitter at first but soon it was automatic to take photos and report the situation so they could be shared with people on the micro-blogging community. I was pleased to get so much immediate feedback,” says the doctor.

Also using Twitter as a communication channel was 1500 miles, a group of volunteers working on the frontline of flood relief. They opted for the micro-blog as easiest way to communicate and cooperate with other parties in offering help and assistance to flood victims.

Rattapoom Youprom, founder of 1500 miles Foundation (@1500miles), says his volunteers would tweet to update media, government and other volunteers on the exact situation they encountered, what the people in a given area needed as a priority, as well how to reach each place securely and effectively.

“We do not work alone but with paraplane and jetski clubs as well as a 4X4 club. We collaborate closely, sharing and exchanging our knowledge and skills. In some location we need kayaks; in others we need a jetski or paraplane; perhaps we need all of them but for different purposes,” says Rattapoom.

“We use Twitter as the key channel to share information from the field and we stream live reports at Facebook. These two social media let people know what exactly we do and explain our activities visually, as well as demonstrate what we face in the field.

Nok Air’s chief executive officer Patee Sarasin, known as @Patee122, has also contributed much time and effort to help flood victims, putting on extra flights to deliver 120 tons of donated items to victims in the south.

Patee calls Twitter the hero of this crisis. He used it constantly to inform, ask for donations and to coordinate assistance and help so that the flood victims would not be left alone for long.

“Twitter is a powerful communication took in an emergency like a flooding crisis. It’s not only the fastest medium but also a real-time channel that allows anyone to be a citizen reporter and share what they face in the field with the world,” says Patee.

ArsaDusit group (#ArsaDusit) is another well-known group of volunteers who devoted their energies to helping. Chidchanok Chankuptarat says the group’s main role is to collect financial and material donations, pack them and then deliver to flood victims. ArsaDusit has been using both Facebook and Twitter as key channels to communicate with the public and other agencies.

Looking at the overflow of information and messages on Twitter, Poramate Minsiri (@iwhale) went one step and founded www.Thaiflood.com, a database centre that provides names and addresses of donation areas, a list of items required by those affected by the flood and stacks of other information.

“Google’s marketing manager for Thailand Pornthip Kongchun is co-founder of Thaiflood.com. She helped co-ordinate with other organisations as well as using Google Map to pinpoint the exact location of flooded areas, flood victim, donations poings and to report which roads cannot used during the flood,” says Poramate.

Thaiflood.com is designed as the “yellow pages” for flood disasters and offers a wide range of related information including how to request help.

“We have a team to monitor and verify information over Twitter and pick useful information to collect on the website, as often 140-characters is not enough to provide people with the information they need. We invite people to use the tag #thaiflood in order to easily manage the fast flowing information and keep them in our archive,” he says.

Poramate and all the others who have given their time so generously are hoping that this year’s flood disaster will not be an annual event and that the millions who have suffered damage will slowly be able to rebuild their lives.

They are also aware that without a powerful communication platform like Twitter, getting aid to the victims would have been a whole lot slowly and harder.

-- The Nation 2010-11-14

[asiawatcher]

Scary these social networks!