Social Media in Emergency Management (Christchurch Earthquake)

A devastating earthquake with a 6.3 magnitude Richter scale reading struck the city of Christchurch in February 2011, a sprawling metropolis and one of the more densely populated cities in New Zealand. Nearly 200 people died. The city’s central business district was severely hit with widespread building and infrastructural damage. Many speculated the earthquake erupted as a repercussion from a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Darfield six months earlier in September 2010. The epicenter of the 2011 earthquake was located at Lyttelton, a port town very close to Christchurch which was why it was more severe in impact than the earlier earthquake that occurred in 2010.

In the midst of all the chaos and confusion that ensued, disaster recovery through social media emergency management took centre stage as the primary communications channel for sharing information, sourcing aid and relief material. Activity on Twitter was intense as local New Zealanders collectively sent out more than 50,000 messages on the day the earthquake struck, February 22. Even after two weeks, government officials transmitted more than 5000 tweets. Affected groups in need of aid were able to reach out to thousands of disaster recovery volunteers through social media channels such as Facebook.

The Christchurch City Council kept the local population informed and up to date through a disaster recovery website on WordPress along with a Twitter account and Facebook page. These forums were the primary channels through which information was transmitted and was also used effectively to keep a tab on public response. Urgent requests and high alert issues were immediately forwarded to incident commanders to be assessed and conclusively resolved. Communication between impacted groups and disaster recovery officials was conducted in an efficient manner without prolonged delays or disruptions. Moreover, the local community was also able to regroup and participate in restoration measures. For instance, cleanup activities, call center support and managing the logistics of distributing relief supplies were some of the activities that were deployed with speed and precision. This was possible thanks to the Student Volunteer Army with a headcount in excess of 10,000 aides that was mobilized through Facebook.

Many local residents proactively generated pools of information. These disaster recovery resources were collated, classified and uploaded as reference material for affected groups and emergency management teams as well. A number of volunteers took the initiative to create online pages that merged information collected from official sources with location specific details. By this time, the international volunteer community had connected with local groups and information was shared, compared and contrasted across a variety of digital platforms. The rescue and relief efforts during the Christchurch earthquake demonstrated the immense scope and potential of the virtual volunteer community in adding value to the social media emergency management strategies of official agencies. However, volunteer groups still had to deal with delays and difficulties in gaining access to local information and syncing their rescue efforts with those of official teams. This turned out to be an impediment that limited the extent of disaster recovery assistance they were able to provide.

Despite an extensive presence in the digital space, government sponsored disaster recovery teams were able to work alongside other stakeholder groups such as virtual volunteers, NGOs, local businesses etc. only in a limited capacity. Official disaster recovery units relied heavily on a rigid, top down approach that was hierarchical in structure. This was particularly apparent in the manner in which they employed social media emergency management tools during the earthquake. And it seemed to indirectly downgrade non official rescue efforts to the status of an auxiliary activity of non critical value. Nevertheless, official involvement during the earthquake was by and large a successful enterprise that earned the state a fair amount of trust and loyalty from the general public thanks to a steady supply and distribution of relief material and reliable intelligence.

During the earlier earthquake in 2010, disaster recovery teams had become aware of how the exchange of disaster related information went viral especially on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This was especially prevalent amongst the affected population. When the earthquake in Christchurch struck, official emergency management squads were well prepared to take advantage of social media platforms for coordinating their rescue efforts. A plan had been outlined over the six months following the 2010 earthquake and in February 2011, a fully functional digital media communications strategy was ready to be deployed.

However, despite extensive use of social media platforms to mobilize rescue and relief resources, the lack of coordination between official squads and volunteer groups still persisted. One of the main reasons these two distinct groups were not able to establish a common ground for collaboration was the lack of trust in the information supplied by non official rescue units despite the huge demand for relevant information from the affected population. The volunteering community spread across the digital space continued to grapple with the challenge of generating a brand of reliability while providing information. Additionally, there weren’t any policies in place that explicitly addressed the potential of volunteer assistance during disasters and how they could complement mainstream disaster recovery services.

Locals were collectively sending and receiving more than 100 tweets across the internet every minute shortly after the initial tremors were felt and the earthquake quickly achieved a trending topic status. The Twitter hash tag #eqnz that came into existence during the earlier earthquake in 2010 became the driving tool behind interexchange of information. During the earthquake in September, 2010, there was some initial confusion as several hash tags such as #nzquake, #chch, #christchurch, and #christchurchquake, were competing for preference. #eqnz finally emerged as the default hash tag with further iterations such as #eqnzcontact and #eqnzaccom in the pipeline.

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (formerly known as the Canterbury Earthquake Authority) created an extensive presence on Twitter through its @CEQgovtnz account. @CEQgovtnz was the largest contributing Twitter subscriber to the #eqnz hashtag during the 2011 earthquake with nearly 2500 tweets in the first couple of weeks after the initial tremors were experienced.

An open source mapping of all the impacted regions was also made available. Geo-tagged information was constantly uploaded so that the map stayed current and up to date. While the map found widespread and immediate acceptance from various quarters, including official government agencies, an alternate mapping system emerged that provided more elaborate details. This mapping system eventually replaced the earlier one as it gave virtual volunteer groups a steady supply of much needed localized information to aid in disaster recovery.

Many web pages were developed with specific objectives such as:

Despite the enormous benefits that both official and non official disaster recovery units capitalized on, a significant percentage of the affected population was cut off from social media due to persistent power outages and compromised communications hardware. The delay in addressing the needs of these groups highlighted the inherent dependencies of social media platforms and Web 2.0 technologies on a robust infrastructural foundation.

The September, 2010 earthquake in Darfied served as a useful primer that prompted emergency management squads to outline elaborate plans and strategies for maximizing the potential of social media emergency management platforms during the earthquake that struck Christchurch soon after in 2011. Human personnel at the Christchurch Response Center were able to efficiently manage the huge volumes of data coming through a variety of channels without any information overload. Affected communities were able to find and access timely assistance, guidance and support.

Training modules that equipped human personnel with the expertise required to process information through various social media platforms was identified as an opportunity for improvement. This included getting acquainted with the important hash tags that aided in sourcing relevant information from context specific conversations.