A powerful earthquake struck the northeastern region of India on Monday morning, an incident that is believed to have killed one little girl while at the same time injuring at least 30 people.
As a result, Facebook has activated the Safety Check feature to help people in not just the affected district of Tamenglong in Manipur, but also in neighboring regions of Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar reach to their people and tell them that they are safe.
In a statement made by the social networking giant’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Safety Check feature is currently live in the region in a bid to help those affected by the deadly earthquake, which measured 6.7, confirm about their safety.
“A major earthquake struck northeastern India and as a result we have activated the Safety Check feature to help people in the affected areas let their family and friends know that they are safe”, the Zuck said.
As mentioned earlier, the tremors were also felt in the neighboring regions of Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar and as a result, the feature has also been activated in these regions as well. In this way, it is easy to tell others you are safe as well as know whether the people you care about are also safe.
The quake took place very early in the morning at about 4:35 am, with the experts recording Tamenglong district of Manipur as its epicenter.
India was also affected with heavy floods that hit the state of Tamil Nadu towards the end of last year and the same feature was also activated. Facebook had faced heavy criticism from its millions of users from all over the world when it activated the feature for victims of the Paris terrorist attack, claiming that it did not do the same when a similar attack was carried out in Lebanon barely a day before the attack on the French capital. Even though it was the first time the feature had been used in a situation involving terrorist attacks, many said that the company was unfair in how it used the Safety Check feature.
However, Facebook defended its actions, claiming that there is always a first time for everything and in case of France’s case, it was the first time. Since then, however, the feature has widely been used in different scenarios than the ones it was first introduced to when it made its debut back in October 2014.
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