Since last week, the state of Uttarakhand in India has been grappling with severe floods. Given that most of these areas are highly inaccessible and have intermittent communication, we in the Google Crisis Response team are opening up Person Finder — a tool that can help trace the missing people in flood impacted regions of Uttarakhand.This version is available in both Hindi and English.
Google Person Finder is a web application that allows individuals to post and search for the status of relatives or friends affected by a disaster. All data entered into Google Person Finder is available to the public and searchable and accessible by anyone. The program also lets press agencies, non-governmental agencies and others contribute to the database and receive updates by using the Person Finder API based on the PFIF open standard.
The National Disaster Management Authority has listed the following helpline numbers for control rooms across rain affected areas in the state of Uttarakhand (please use India country code +91 as appropriate):
Uttarkashi: (+91) 1374-226461,
Chamoli: (+91) 1372-251437, 9411352136,
Rudraprayag: (+91) 1364-233727,9412914875,
Tehri: (+91) 1376-233433, 9411548090
Kedarnath: (+91) 1364-233727
Control Room (Uttarakhand): (+91) 135-2710334, 9557444486,
We hope Person Finder helps people get the latest information about their near and dear ones in these flood affected areas. For more information about how it works, click here.
Posted by Jayanth Mysore, Senior Product Manager on behalf of Google APAC and the Google Crisis Response team
