The World Connects

As the devastating earthquake rocked Haiti and destroyed what little order the poor island nation had, I watched as the world connected. People gave words of support, volunteered to help, and donated what they could over social networks and via mobile devices. Using Twitter people helped friends and strangers alike locate surviving relatives and directed help to individuals trapped under rubble. Employing text messaging to collect donations, the Red Cross raised over $5 million to help Haiti within days of the catastrophic event (source Mashable.com).

Then Saturday morning I woke to the news of another devastating earthquake – this time 8.8 magnitude in Chile. As after the events on Haiti, I watched people all over the world connect and communicate via social media. I searched Chile or #Chile on Twitter and tons of messages in multiple languages scrolled down my screen. Thirty seconds after I entered my search terms a status bar stated that 137 new tweets had been posted on this topic since I began my search, at a minute it was 216. The day after the earthquake Google created an online people finder to help locate missing or displaced individuals and connect families and friends. Now, a day after the website launched it is tracking about 42,600 records (source Google Chile Person Finder). Lonely Planet' Thorn Tree forums created a page for the community to post useful links and updates. The world is coming together – virtually – to help.

Living in the United States in a time of political finger pointing it is encouraging to see the world community coming together and collaborating to help others.

The world is connecting.

• Information on how to donate to Chile Earthquake Relief is available online at Mashable.com.