• GAYATHRI RANJIT

The floods which hit Kerala in August 2018 has killed more than 370 people, displaced over 800,000, and led to an estimated infrastructure loss of $3 billion. In response to this unprecedented tragedy, there came to fore many instances of ingenuity and collaboration, which allowed for the generosity of individuals to scale. One also witnessed how Kerala used a new model of rescue and rehabilitation during its worst flood of the century. The Kerala floods demonstrated the role of Information Technology (IT) and social media in developing a self-evolving data crowd sourced platform that greatly helped rescue and rehabilitation. Crowdsourcing is the method of obtaining information or input into a task by making use of the services of a large number of people or devices, either paid or unpaid, typically via the Internet. Kerala, being one of the states with high digital literacy in India, has a large number of smartphone users. The telecom operators made efforts to keep the networks intact that helped the relief works immensely. Many operators announced free calls and data packs over their networks during the floods to avoid any hindrance to the rescue operations. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) with the support of the state run Kerala IT Mission, developed a portal keralarescue.in to collect help across the state. As the rescue operations progressed, new features that could help the operation were added, and coordination was done using the popular cloud based collaboration platform Slack. Popular and active facebook pages with regional influence used their platform for posting help requests. Large and small groups were formed both inside and outside India to collect messages, and to spread these messages after verifying through phone calls, assigning priority by considering the number and ages of people trapped, and to prepare proper SOS messages with geo-tags to pass on to the rescue teams through the volunteers in the district level administration. The active deployment of technology saved many lives and yet again demonstrated the utility of GIS and geospatial technologies in disaster management. Throughout the world, remote sensing, GIS, and satellite imagery are increasingly being used to assess post-disaster scenario, find the level of damage and provide exact information about people. In the case of Kerala floods too these technologies are playing a crucial role in disaster management. A set of remote sensing satellites and radar satellites were used for clicking high-resolution images of the areas worst affected by the flood. Remote sensing using microwave satellites was also beneficial in these unforeseen situations. There is no better way than location technology and GPS to know about the whereabouts of a person in a region hit by floods or any other natural disaster. With the help of location and tracking services of Google, rescue workers and volunteers were able to locate people in remote and inaccessible locations. Interactive maps and citizen initiatives helps everyone to learn about the extent of damage, areas least affected and the areas where maximum damage has occurred. This paper highlights all these technologies that played a crucial role in disaster management, in the case of Kerala floods.

crowdsourcing, information technology, remote sensing, geospacial technologies, interactive maps

"Application of Information and Communication Technologies in Natural Disasters: The Case of Kerala Floods", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.7, Issue 4, page no.843-848, April-2020, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2004113.pdf

"Application of Information and Communication Technologies in Natural Disasters: The Case of Kerala Floods", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.7, Issue 4, page no. pp843-848, April-2020, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2004113.pdf