Uttarakhand: Social networking helps families reunite with missing kin

After five days of anxiety and fear for the Agarwal family from Rajasthan, their 33-year-old son Amit was finally traced in the Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust in Dehradun. Amit, who was on his way to Kedarnath, was one of the thousands of tourists trapped in the devastating floods of Uttarakhand.

His family had lost all hopes of finding him until one of his relatives found his whereabouts posted by the Dehradun hospital team on Google Person Finder, a web application that allows individuals to post and search for the status of relatives or friends affected by a disaster. After hours of anxious moments, the family members found Amit’s details on the Google Person Finder and contacted the hospital authorities through the phone number mentioned on the Web site.

“We could not get any information about him for five days since he went missing. We tried calling all emergency helpline numbers to seek information. But we could trace him only through Google Person Finder,” said his younger brother Nitin.

Like Amit, information about hundreds of others whose whereabouts are currently unknown or who have been traced in some area in the affected zones is publicly available through the Web application.

Contact details

The Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust alone has about 300 patients whose contact details are posted on the Google Person Finder. “We have an ambulance stationed at the Joli Grand Airport at Dehradun that brings affected victims to our hospital. As soon as we enroll them in our hospital records, we post their pictures and other information on the Google Person Finder so that the families can trace them,” said Muthu Venkatachalam, a team-member of the Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust, Dehradun.

The hospital receives hundreds of phone calls from families enquiring about missing persons and many have been reunited through the Google Person Finder, said Venkatachalam.

The Person Finder application, which is available in both Hindi and English, is currently tracking over 8,200 records and the number is multiplying every minute. The Web application allows anybody to post photographs of the missing person, name, physical characteristics, home address and current location.

The home page of Google Person Finder for Uttarakhand Floods has two options: “I’m looking for someone” and “I have information about someone”.

While Amit’s family could locate him through this platform, there are many others like the family of Beena Goel, who have been desperately trying to locate her only to get an “unspecified” status on the page.

Social media

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been flooded with messages from families of the affected people as well as volunteers in the Uttarakhand region.

Using the wide medium of Twitter, Ratnakar Sadasyula (@ScorpiusMaximus) has uploaded separate documents that has the list of people from Andhra Pradesh rescued at Kedarghati region as well as people rescued in Chamoli district. Many others like Rohit Bajpai have posted pictures of missing parents and relatives in Twitter. Facebook has a dedicated page on flood disaster that gives information on help and relief.

The official Website of Uttarakhand Police gives a list of rescued people at every region, list of people receiving treatments at different places and names of deceased persons.

Over 8,000 people still are stranded in Uttarakhand even as hundreds of others are missing.

nivedita.ganguly@thehindu.co.in

deepa.nair@thehindu.co.in

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