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A disaster mitigation drill using microblogging site Twitter for purposes including finding shelters and locating the injured was held today in Tokyo’s Roppongi area.
The training, organised by Twitter’s Japanese unit, major real estate developer Mori Building Co. Internet service company Yahoo Japan Corp. and others, aims to enhance participants’ readiness to make use of social media in a disaster and awareness about problems such as how to handle erroneous information.
During the March 2011 crisis in northeastern Japan, many pieces of information were sent out via “tweets” or short messages on Twitter, but a lot of them contained incorrect information.
About 100 people from the public are participating in the drill, which is based on the scenario that the Japanese capital has been struck by a major earthquake.
The participants will simultaneously receive the initial report of an earthquake via a smartphone application for emergency alerts provided by Yahoo before moving to a shelter set up by Mori Building.
The training will require participants to frequently check Twitter updates by Mori Building on appropriate evacuation routes and also to send out tweets on the whereabouts of the injured they encounter on their way.
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