Although the wrath of Typhoon Haiyan ended
in November 11, the destruction it left behind will cause many years of physical
and emotional damage to the victims who were directly affected. With at least 10,000 people dead, more than 12,000 people injured, and about 1,000 people missing,
the entire Filipino community is struggling pick themselves up after one of the
most devastating tropical storms in recent years. With the lack of
communication between the Filipino people and their government, the victims are
now turning to their social media accounts as a way to carry out requests to
anyone in the world who is willing to help donate food and money for the
victims.
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| Typhoon Haiyan victims use their mobile devices to contact their loved ones around the world, |
With millions of Filipinos lacking the
basic necessities—food, water, and shelter—some are now using sites such as Facebook
and Twitter as a means to communicate to the world around them, asking not only
for prayers during their times of turmoil, but also donations in the form of
food and money. In the end, their efforts have not been in vain; in fact,
within the first week after the typhoon struck, many Americans have donated to
a plethora of online donations sites, producing more than $20 million dollars in donations to the victims. In addition, many online social networking sites,
such as Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, are providing direct links to various
donation websites on their respective homepages as a way to raise awareness to
their users.
During times of natural disasters,
social networking sites continue to quickly help raise awareness to people
around the world. In turn, this awareness has help raised a lot of donations to
the victims who suffered, ultimately illustrating that sites such as Twitter
and Facebook are multifaceted; that is, using them not only to communicate to loved ones
and friends, but to also reach out to the world in times of desperate need.
