By Edna Alcantara
MEXICO CITY, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Social networking apps did more than connect people after a powerful earthquake toppled buildings in Mexico City on Sept. 19. They served to save lives by getting help to disaster sites where scores of residents were trapped under rubble.
"Society has found an ally in technology," cybersecurity expert Luis Novoa Romo told Xinhua.
In the immediate aftermath of the quake, victims turned to Twitter, Facebook and other networking apps to call for help, while in the hours that followed volunteers used them to organize the rescue efforts.
In the days that followed, accounts were created to address myriad challenges. Some detailed the particular tools needed at certain sites, like hammers and pick axes. Others let volunteers know which neighborhood restaurants were serving free hot meals to support the rescue efforts.
Still another compiled information about the hundreds of cats and dogs that had darted out of their homes when the quake hit, in an effort to pair the frantic owners with their lost pets.
More importantly, technology "allowed the crosschecking of information on missing persons with the data of people who had been located," said Novoa.
It's crucial to "have instant communication to call on people to participate in a particular activity, to request supplies, to report on the current situation at a site, to identify which zones have been affected by the disaster ... all of that, thanks to technology that is well applied and also well used," added Novoa.
Unfortunately, technology also suffers during a disaster, he said, noting "people and organizations have been affected from losing the data they stored" in homes and businesses destroyed by the quake.
"Photos, videos, documents, client and supplier files, invoices, orders, financial statements, information that if not backed up, may have been lost forever," said Novoa.
As a cybersecurity expert, he urges his clients to spend the extra money it takes to backup their digital files.
"In many cases, you're not aware of the advantages (of backing up files) until a disaster strikes," he said.
One case in point, he said, was Mexico City's Secretariat of Urban Development and Housing, which announced a few days ago that it lost the computer files it kept on construction in the capital due to the quake.
The news coincided with an announcement by prosecutors that they were launching investigations into the developers of brand new buildings that had nevertheless collapsed in the quake.
"It only leads us to two conclusions: they are either altering the data they have or those responsible for IT (information technology) are incompetent," said Novoa.
