(Image source from: Facebook’s Safety Check Feature lets you know status of your nearer ones!)

During the natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis and other calamities, the people in around the affected area would get fear and their relatives and well wishers certainly get more tension about their well-being or the situation.

Facebook’s new Safety Check feature has done commendable job in this aspect on the deadly earthquakes in Nepal, the users have taken the app to convey their situation to their friends and families. Even the users, who wanted to know about their fellows (who are located in the disaster spots), have came to learn through the feature.

“When disasters happen, people need to know their loved ones are safe,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a posting on Saturday. “It’s moments like this that being able to connect really matters.”

The safety check is not a risky one, users who are near the disaster will get a notification asking whether they are safe as the facebook first determines the location of user on the basis of where the users live, where the user recently checked in and where the users accessed the internet recently.

After getting the notification from Facebook, users can select “I’m Safe” or “I’m not in the affected area.” The answer will be appeared on the News Feed of that particular user. The friends and followers will get the information.

And the users at other end, who is concerned about his or her friends, can visit the designated Safety Check page. For example, they can go to Nepal Earthquake page, which show the list of friends in the affected area and their safety status.

The idea for Safety Check developed after the devastating Japan tsunami in 2011. “During that crisis we saw how people used technology and social media to stay connected with those they cared about,” the social network said upon launching Safety Check last October.

Hence, the social networking sites are really great in these circumstances.

-Kannamsai