Google posted a before/after look at the area to its Google Maps Google+ account today:

Google Maps7 hours ago

We've published post-tornado imagery of Moore, OK on our Google Crisis Response Map ( http://google.org/crisismap/2013-oklahoma-tornado ). Here's a before (collected on 29th April by CNES 2013, Distribution Astrium Services/Spot Image) and after (collected on 22nd May by Digitalglobe) view showing Briarwood elementary school and the surrounding area - http://goo.gl/9pazZ. You can check/uncheck the boxes on the right of the map link to explore more information.

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In other Google Maps news, the company also revealed that it has been using its Trekker camera device to capture new imager from the Galapagos Islands. This imagery will be making its way to Google Maps later this year. You can see a preview here.

State officials announced this morning that fewer people had been killed than previously thought, with a spokesperson for the state medical examiner’s office saying in a news conference that some of the victims had been counted twice. While certainly no death toll could be considered a good thing, a reduced number of deaths is a bright spot in an otherwise ghastly ordeal.

Emergency personnel continue to search for victims, including two dozen missing children from an elementary school that was destroyed.

Google has launched a crisis map, providing resources for those affected by the storm.

Photos and videos of the tornado and its destruction have flooded social media, giving the whole world a glimpse of the terror that ripped through the area. Here, you can see a video of the storm forming in Newcastle, OK. In this one, a woman finds her missing dog in the rubble while being interviewed by CBS.

Image via reddit

“The birth of the May 20, 2013 tornado at Newcastle, OK. It Moved from there to Moore where it turned into an F4. God be with its victims,” says Charles Cook in the YouTube video description.

The video is currently the top entry in reddit’s r/video subreddit, under the heading: “Incredible video my Dad took of the May 20th tornado FORMING and destroying everything in its path near Newcastle, OK (0-F4 in seconds)”

User solvitNOW, who submitted it, says, “He was out that way for work today and just happened to be in the right place at the right time. He was worried it was going to come back at him and was searching for a way to scoot out it’s way once he was able to gauge how insanely close it was to him. He hung in there, though. Unbelievable.”

See some photos of the aftermath here.

According to a recent update from CNN, personnel have rescued over a hundred people from the rubble in metropolitan Oklahoma City. According to CBS News, there are still two dozen missing children from an elementary school that was destroyed.

Photos and videos of the tornado and its destruction have flooded social media, giving the whole world a glimpse of the terror that ripped through the area.

Reddit, in particular, has a plethora of photos (mostly hosted on Imgur) of the aftermath. Here are a few of the top photos from the r/pics subreddit with their reddit headlines:

Teachers Carrying Elementary Students out of School Leveled by Tornado in Moore, Oklahoma (soonerguy11)

A teacher finds one of his students among the rubble caused by the tornado in Moore, OK (robbinsc).

Picture taken in the tornado rubble in Moore, OK. (Fritoontheradio)

My brother’s friend after the tornado standing in front of his former house. (stratola)

Picture from my backyard of May 20th tornado that hit Oklahoma today. (BrokenRayn)

More at reddit.com/r/pics, reddit.com/r/oklahoma, and no doubt countless other subreddits.

Less than one week after a sinkhole reported to be 30 feet across pulled a man named Jeffrey Bush to his death, Reuters is reporting that a second sinkhole has appeared in the Tampa area. The new sinkhole opened up underneath a fence and no injuries have been reported. It is only around 5 feet deep and 12 feet wide, but it still has residents concerned for their lives and property.

According to the Reuters report, Tampa officials have stated that this new sinkhole is unrelated to last week’s deadly one.

The sinkhole that caused the death last week opened up underneath Bush’s bedroom, swallowing Bush and his bedroom furniture. That hole was 60 feet deep and authorities have stated they do not expect to be able to recover Bush’s body. The house in which the sinkhole appeared has been demolished, and residents near the house have been evacuated as a precaution.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection states that limestone in the state is porous and vulnerable to acidic water. As the water dissolves the limestone, caverns form, which can then collapse to form a sinkhole.

From the iTunes homepage, you can access the donation page via a new button just under the new music box.

The donation page allows you give in six different denominations – $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, and $200. In order to donate, you must be logged in to your Apple account and the donation will be charged to whatever card you’ve linked to it. As always, 100% of your donation goes directly to the American Red Cross.

It’s important to note that you can’t use iTunes Store credit to make your donation.

Of course, this is not the first time that Apple has allowed iTunes to be a hub for donations following a natural disaster – but it’s nice to know that there’s another method out there to help those in need. You can access the page directly here.

Hurricane Sandy slammed into the coast Monday evening, and left a trail of destruction behind her. Areas in states like New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are still dealing with massive flooding, and residents are still coping with the inability to travel from place to place.

But according to Facebook, people seem to have taken FEMA’s advice. Facebook’s media page recently posted the 10 most-shared terms by Facebook users as of this morning, and “We are ok” tops the list.

Here’s the complete top 10:

1. we are ok
2. power – lost power, have power, no power
3. damage
4. hope everyone is ok
5. trees
6. made it
7. safe
8. thankful
9. fine
10. affected

As you can see, five of the top ten terms involve people letting other know they are alright. Social media has changed a lot of things in our world over the last decade, and this is just another example of that. In times of disaster, services like Facebook and Twitter can be a lifeline, and other services like Tumblr and Instagram can give us a window into the action as it happens.

[Lead Image Courtesy Doxella, Flickr]

Well, at least as far as asteroid 2012 DA 14 goes.

The video, which was uploaded by YouTube user CelestiaDev, is daringly accurate with its measured time estimates of the asteroid’s trajectory. Several different vantages are presented that all show the asteroid, while at times looking to collide with earth, completely missing our planet. What’s more is that you’ll see how it does in fact get closer to Earth than many of our own satellites hanging around in orbit.

The video isn’t just compiled by somebody’s inventive imagination, either: the depiction was constructed using the calculations of Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s HORIZONS solar system data and ephemeris computation service.

Honestly, though, I’m really not sure if this animation will allay any of the concerns people have about our planet getting hit with an asteroid or if it will actually make them worse because, as the video shows, that asteroid looks to pass frighteningly close to Earth.

Still. It’s going to miss us by over 13,000 miles. Gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces in nature. We break this force every single day of our lives and we are not 25-mile-wide space rocks. If we can have our way with Earth’s gravitational force anytime we like, you really think our planet’s gravitational pull is gonna be enough to suck in asteroid DA 14?

It’s seriously not going to happen, people.

But that’s neither here nor there. For now, at least.

For now, Google is still doing some pretty awesome stuff with their Maps technology in order to improve the quality of life for many, many people. Their Flu Trends is helping hospitals stay better prepared for influenza outbreaks and today Google announced that they are partnering with World Bank to collaborate on ways to make Google Maps an effective tool for developing countries to prepare for disasters. The announcement from Google’s Lat Long blog offers up the goods:

Under this agreement, the World Bank will act as a conduit to make Google Map Maker source data more widely and easily available to government organizations in the event of major disasters, and also for improved planning, management, and monitoring of public services provision.

The free, web-based mapping tool called Google Map Maker enables citizens to directly participate in the creation of maps by contributing their local knowledge. Once approved, those additions are then reflected on Google Maps and Google Earth for others around the world to see.

The Google Map Maker data includes detailed maps of more than 150 countries and regions, and identifies locations like schools, hospitals, roads, settlements and water points that are critical for relief workers to know about in times of crisis. The data will also be useful for planning purposes, as governments and their development partners can use the information to monitor public services, infrastructure and development projects; make them more transparent for NGOs, researchers, and individual citizens; and more effectively identify areas that might be in need of assistance before a disaster strikes.

The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery will helm the project, Google says, and will build upon prior mapping efforts to “create comprehensive maps of schools, hospitals, and other social infrastructure” in new, developing countries via Map Maker technology.

Today, they’ve announced that the project has come to fruition. 44,000 kilometers worth of driving has yielded some unbelievable before and after photos that are now available for everyone to see using Street View.

In the bottom left corner of each image you’ll also see a month and year that tells you when a particular photograph was taken. When looking at images of the magnificent cities side-by-side with images of the ruins left in their place, this additional context demonstrates how truly life-changing this tragedy has been for those who live there and witnessed the destruction of their homes, neighborhoods and even entire districts.

This timestamp feature has been the most requested Street View feature for the last few years, and it is now available on Street View imagery worldwide. Professionals such as historians, architects, city planners and tourism boards—as well as regular users including travelers and home-buyers—can now get a sense of how fresh the online photos are for a locations that interests them

You can access the new Street View photos by simply going to Google Maps and entering Street view in the specific areas, but it’s better if you visit the Build The Memory site, which is devoted to the before and after shots.

It might be a little tough to find perfect before and after shots, but if you search up Japan’s Northeast coast, it won’t take you too long. Once you zoom in on a particular area, you can hit the “before” or “after” buttons at the top and see a photo of the same location, either pre or post tsunami.

Doing so will give you amazing contrasts like these from Onagawa, Oshika Distrcit, Miyagi Prefecture:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

As you can see, the devastation is immense. At least this sort of thing can provide context for people who were too young to remember the disasters or perhaps hadn’t even been born yet. Another interesting visualization of the Japan disasters was released by Twitter back in June. It shows the volume of tweets being sent during the earthquake and the chaotic period afterward.