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Facebook Helped Connect Over 7 Million Nepal Earthquake Survivors to Family

Facebook Helped Connect Over 7 Million Nepal Earthquake Survivors to Family

By Indo Asian News Service | Updated: 2 May 2015 20:41 IST

Over seven million people in Nepal used Facebook to reach out to over 150 million friends and family members across the globe after last week's devastating earthquake, a company official said in a statement on Friday.

It also said that the social networking site raised over $10 million in just two days for the victims.

Mark Zuckerberg, one of the five co-founders of Facebook, said: "We activated 'safety check' and more than 7 million people in the area have been marked as safe. More than 150 million friends were notified and those updates let people rest easier and relief efforts remain focused."

The statement said that in addition, Facebook gave people the option to support local relief efforts and in just two days, more than half-a-million people donated and raised more than $10 million to support the relief effort.

"Facebook will donate an additional $2 million to local recovery efforts to help those in affected areas," it added.

Furthermore, WhatsApp messenger - a web chat service owned by Facebook - is being used in Nepal and across the region helping aid workers to coordinate and figure out how to get to affected areas.

"It is inspiring to see our community coming together to help people in their time of need," Zuckerberg said.

The toll in last week's temblor has so far crossed the 6,000-mark and is expected to touch 10,000.

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