Jan 6, 2022

3 min read

In addition to a robust OSM Team of mappers working actively in coordination with international mappers to map disaster affected regions of Nepal, we also have a dedicated group of volunteers working in scouring social media to submit reports of affected areas, verifying the correctness of reports received, and connecting victims with aid organizations to mobilize relief in impacted areas.

A day in the Quakemap.org situation room Quakemap.org has received over 1000 reports so far. The work of our volunteers in the report room starts when new reports come in. A dedicated team of approvers go through each report to determine the urgency level of the report, verify that the report is pinned in the right location on the map, and finally approve the report to be published. This ensures that relief providers accessing our map have valid information to work with. A “night shift” provided by Humanity Road is now combing through previously approved reports to ensure that the ones approved in the chaos of the early disaster response meet current standards.

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As the reports get approved, verification teams reach out to local contacts mentioned in the reports to determine if the area is still awaiting relief. Each individual in the verification team adopts a specific district at the beginning of the work day. They then call local contacts for all the reports received for the district, and categorize the reports based on the type of need: medical vs food/water/sanitation. Based on the compilation of verified reports in a region, the team contacts relief organization present in each area to request quick and effective response.

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KLL collaborates with Yellow House

Despite a significant turnout of individual volunteers to help with the reporting and dispatch process, the scale of the work we have at the situation room is such that incorporation of more volunteers to take-up responsibilities is always a welcome news. So we are happy to announce that KLL is now collaborating with Yellow House volunteers to help with reporting and dispatch process to quicker relief mobilization.

Latest Developments

We have finally gotten in contact with our experienced Ushihidi developer Laxman Maharjan, alive and well! He and his colleague, “Bob,” have now joined our current team of developers improving the functionality of the system.

We regularly export the reports received and pass them to Nepal Army. We were informed that Nepal Army used high priority 300 reports in the response work on May 1. They have asked for other new report today.

In other news, we have streamlined our dispatch process. We now compile human readable lists of reports for the areas organizations are working in. This allows for more effective dispatch process as aid workers on the field have better visibility to all the affected pockets in the area. We are also actively signing up aid organizations to receive alerts whenever new reports come through in the regions where they are providing relief.