The New York Times has an interesting story on how Filipinos are using Twitter, Facebook and other social networking tools to help out during the disastrous floods.
In the immediate aftermath of the devastation caused by Tropical Storm Ketsana, which hit the Philippines in force on Saturday, the country’s government blamed victims for not heeding its warnings and suggested that its disaster relief efforts were not as bad as those of the American government during Hurricane Katrina. The storm, also called Ondoy in the Philippines, has killed at least 140 people and displaced about 150,000, according to the latest report.
The American disaster was invoked by critics of the government response as soon as images of Filipinos stranded on rooftops started circulating on Saturday — on television, on YouTube, in slide shows, on newly-created blogs and through social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
On Sunday The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that Prisco Nilo, who runs the national weather agency, told President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in a briefing that the storm had dropped nearly 17 inches of rain on the country, “compared to the [10 inches] of rain that Hurricane Katrina brought to New Orleans in Louisiana in the United States in 2005.” In a subsequent interview with the newspaper, Mr. Nilo said of citizens who did not heed his agency’s warning about the storm: “Instead of just watching the soap operas on TV, they should also watch the news.”
According to another report from the Inquirer, another government official claimed the authorities had cleared the low bar set by American officials four years ago:
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