Communications Technology

Christchurch earthquake victims are using the web as a virtual crisis centre, harnessing it for everything from finding and offering accommodation to locating missing people.

The Christchurch Quake Map website presents a time-lapse visualisation of the quake and its aftershocks, “primarily to help those outside the affected area understand what those of us in Canterbury are experiencing”. Users can see every quake and aftershock that occurred, along with the exact time and depth.

Another site, eq.org.nz, is taking pressure off emergency services by plotting official and user-generated information and reports on a Google Map. This information includes anything from infrastructure damage to hazard zones to animals in distress.

With hotels around Christchurch filling up, New Zealanders have jumped on to CouchSurfing.com and Facebook to open up their homes to people without a place to stay.

Google, meanwhile, has created a Christchurch Earthquake crisis response page that includes a “people finder” tool allowing people to share and gather information about those missing in the disaster. This tool, which contains 6500 records that can be searched by name, was first used following last year’s Haiti earthquake.

“If anyone needs a place to stay and can get to Wellington. I will be happy to meet you at the airport and bring you to our house,” wrote one of the many CouchSurfing users opening up their homes to victims.

On Facebook, an open group with 493 members, “Offering free temporary accommodation for Christchurch quake victims”, has a plethora of free accommodation offers.

People are offering up beds all over New Zealand - Auckland, Cambridge Waikato, Tauranga, Hamilton, Taupo, Palmerston North, Dunedin, Ashburton - and even some Australians on the group have advertised spare beds.

Other Facebook groups include “Tell us you’re ok”, with over 2600 members, and “Supporting Christchurch Earthquake 22-02-2011″, which has been “liked” by over 54,000 users.

“Anecdotally we are hearing that people have been using Facebook Checkin to locate themselves and share that information on Facebook with families and friends,” said James Griffin, spokesman for social media monitoring firm SR7.

“In our opinion, the location based social networking will increasingly become an important tool during times of crisis.”

Many in Christchurch who could potentially benefit from the online resources may not be able to access them, as power has been cut to much of the city and mobile networks have been patchy. But communications links are improving as time passes.

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It was the day old-fashioned communication came out trumps.

As a bushfire devastated some of south-eastern Perth suburbs Roleystone and Kelmscott, destroying dozens of homes, those forced to flee on Sunday faced a nervous wait to hear of the fate of their homes.

With little public information available on individual homes from the Fire and Emergency Services Authority, save for approximate total numbers, many turned to other methods to find out.

But Twitter, Facebook, and other new media were left in the fire’s dust by the traditional “bush telegraph” - word of mouth reports from those still at, or near, the scene, keeping an eye on not only their own properties, but their neighbours.

As hundreds crammed in to the Armadale Arena yesterday to “officially” hear what happened to their homes, the venue was abuzz with tales from those who already knew.

They involved neighbours risking their own safety on foot, in cars, or even by bicycle to find out how their friends’ properties had fared.

Others, trying to put safety first, headed for the plentiful higher ground to get a better view.

Lynette Gehrmann rushed to her neighbours’ place in Peter Street, Kelmscott, when she saw a fire break out on the front lawn.

She and her family then rushed for safety as the flames approached, before spending an anxious night at the relocation centre waiting to know what was going on.

While nervous, she had heard word earlier through the “bush telegraph” that her house was okay, and so it proved.

It was a similar story for Kelmscott orchardist Peter Villan - he all but had confirmation by getting to higher ground and seeing his densely-wooded property had somehow survived.

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The operator of Mt Hawthorn-based dating website Red Hot Pie has been ordered by the Federal Court to disclose to its users that it operated 1371 of its own profiles on the website.

The Federal Court found that Jetplace created fake profiles to send “flirts” and messages to users.

The court declared that Jetplace contravened the Trade Practices Act 1974 by engaging in misleading conduct and by representing that membership of the website had benefits that it did not have.

The court also declared that Jetplace directors Maxwell James McGuire and Mark Semaan were aware of the offending conduct.

Jetplace has been ordered to publish a corrective notice when each user of the website who registered between December 2004 and November 26, 2008 next logs on, and to send a copy of the notice to the email address of each user.

Users can also apply for refunds if they can demonstrate that they were misled by the conduct into paying for membership of the website.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairman Graeme Samuel said the website operators had a legal responsibility to ensure the information they placed on the website was accurate.

“Had this conduct occurred after the introduction of the new Australian Consumer Law, it is likely the ACCC would have sought from the court civil pecuniary penalties,” he said.

“Such penalties can be up to $1.1 million for companies and $220,000 for individuals.”

Mr McGuire said the 1371 profiles were created over a four-year period for the User Security Suite and only “a small number” of those profiles were active at any given time.

“This part of the Red Hot Pie User Security Suite was voluntarily deactivated in November 2008 following the identification of the ACCC’s concerns,” he said.

“This part of the site’s User Security Suite would have been of minimal inconvenience to bona fide members of the site, and most will not have been aware of its existence or its passing.”

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