Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance
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Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance
Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance
News, resources and professional development for the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance http://rigea.org
Curated by Seth Dixon
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How Online Mapmakers Are Helping the Red Cross Save Lives in the Philippines

How Online Mapmakers Are Helping the Red Cross Save Lives in the Philippines | Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance | Scoop.it
Volunteers across the world are building the digital infrastructure for the organization's Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts

Want to see geographic knowledge and geospatial skills in action?  Crowd-sourced mapping is increasingly an important resource during an emergency.  Poorer places are often not as well mapped out by the commercial cartographic organizations and these are oftentimes the places that are hardest hit by natural disasters.  Relief agencies depend on mapping platforms to handle the logistics of administering aid and assessing the extent of the damage and rely on these crowd-sourced data sets.  Can you join in and help?

Tony Aguilar's curator insight, November 13, 2013 3:32 PM

online maps are being used to help locate the best way possible to help transport food and resources to those most in need. They van locate bridges and the world is pulling together with tehcnolgy and accurate maps to help the  American red Cross maximize in time and manpower. It seems that after Hurricane Katrina and the Earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, We have been improving our strategies for how to best help people around the globe come together put our time energy and resources together to best help people whose lives have been devasted and crushed by the forces of mother nature.

 

Tracy Galvin's curator insight, May 3, 2014 7:14 PM

Having a map of the current landscape, after the typhoon will speed up relief and rescue efforts by showing areas to land and set up help stations. The digital world is immediate now and this will change how organizations such as the Red Cross provide relief to suffering people.

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'Absolute Bedlam' In The Philippines After Typhoon Haiyan

'Absolute Bedlam' In The Philippines After Typhoon Haiyan | Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance | Scoop.it

The news from the Philippines, where it's feared that last week’s powerful Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 10,000 people, isn’t getting better as hundreds of thousands of people struggle to survive and authorities struggle to get help to them.


"Its absolute bedlam right now," says Richard Gordon, head of the Philippine Red Cross.  “There's an awful lot of casualties, a lot of people dead all over the place, a lot of destruction.”


According to the BBC, a huge international relief effort is underway, but rescue workers have struggled to reach some towns and villages cut off since the storm.

Al Picozzi's curator insight, November 13, 2013 10:00 PM

Just the remoteness of the area is going to hinder the relief efforts.  Even though the supplies are getting through it is getting through to the areas that need it the most is the problem.  When the infrastructure is not that good to begin with, the damage done by this kind of disaster is multiplied.  Look at New Orleans when Katrina hit.  It still took days for relief and just water to get where it was needed.  Imagine what that would have been like if the infrastructure was like like that of the Philippines.  The country is overwhelmed by this disaster and needs the help.  Its getting it but the problem still exists of how to distrbute it now that it is there.  Makes you wonder if Subic Bay was still open as a US military base if it would have made it easier.  Sometimes having a military base is not a bad thing.

Rebecca Farrea's curator insight, November 14, 2013 8:50 AM

Even though the death toll resulting from Typhoon Haiyan is around 1,000, it is expected to reach 10,000.  International aid will hopefully help cities such as Tacloban City recover from this storm.

Tracy Galvin's curator insight, May 3, 2014 7:05 PM

With so many of the citizens living on the coast, a large typhoon like this completely destroys most of the country. When this much devastation happens all at one time it takes a very long time to recover.