Haiti: Google sets up missing people finder

San Francisco, Jan 19: Internet giant Google joined in the global efforts to help the earthquake hit Caribbean country with a centralized search system for tracking down or finding people missing in Haiti.

Available in English, French and Creole, new gadget was developed by Google engineers in 36 hours.

The gadget is available on Google's Haiti earthquake response website as well as on the US State Department website.

In order to prevent the proliferation of multiple missing persons databases, which was a big problem during Hurricane Katrina, Google has made the People Finder gadget standards-based and easily embeddable on any website, the company said in an official blog post on Monday, Jan 18.

To help the families in United States stay connected with their loved ones in Haiti, Google is also offering be free calls to Haiti for the next two weeks via Google Voice.

The search engine behemoth acted quick when the 7.0 intensity earthquake rocked Haiti last Tuesday, Jan 12, by updating its Google Earth application with imagery soon after the disaster.

This helped aid organisations assess the damage.

OneIndia News