This isn’t to say it should have – Google is a for-profit corporation based in America, and is in no way obligated to take note of natural disasters overseas.  Still, following its response to the cyclone in Myanmar, Google’s reaction to the earthquake seems rather weak.

Google China After Earthquake

Posts documenting the cyclone and/or soliciting aid for Myanmar’s civilians showed up on the Official Google Blog, the LatLong Blog, the Google Checkout Blog, and the Google Grants Blog.  A "donate" link was put on Google.com, and donation-matching is also taking place.

In contrast, there doesn’t yet appear to be anything in English relating to the earthquake.  Philipp Lenssen only writes, "The homepage of Google China links to a special map showing [earthquake] information.  Auto-translating the homepage text results in: ‘New! Google launched an emergency situation in the earthquake map, view the latest situation in earthquake relief.’"

Again, we’re not pointing fingers.  The situation is odd, though, especially given Google’s presence in China.

Although the military rulership of Myanmar, still called Burma by many countries, isn’t the most open of governments, their borders are as open as any to satellites.

Fortunately for relief efforts in the wake of the Myanmar cyclone disaster, the government’s continued refusal to grant visas to relief workers isn’t hindering Google from trying to help. The search advertising company showed on its LatLong blog a new layer for Google Earth that shows where to find all of the known healthcare centers (as of a 2002 survey) in the country.

The new layer, developed by Direct Relief International, may be downloaded by any Google Earth client:

We color-coded the sites by the capacity of the facility so that you can visually differentiate between larger hospitals, specialized medical units, and clinics/rural health centers.

By combining layers showing the governmental and nongovernmental health facilities that we work with, and the physical impact, we can focus our response on those points of access to healthcare that are serving the most affected communities. Using this geospatial information in conjunction with situation reports from the field enables us to more efficiently target our assistance.

Google also set up a cyclone relief donations page, backed by its Checkout service. Visitors may donate to Direct Relief International and to Unicef from the page to help relief efforts.

As Josh Mendelsohn wrote on the Official Google Blog, here’s what may matter most: "[W]e’ve created a Checkout Donations page so you can easily donate to UNICEF or Direct Relief International.  Both organizations are working to directly assist the victims on the ground in Myanmar."

 Google Does Its Part For Cyclone Victims

Five more well-intentioned entities are listed on the Google Grants Blog, and it’s a "Support victims of the cyclone in Myanmar (Burma)" message that showed up on Google.com.  "Donate" links are prominent on both pages.

Short of shipping over employees or money (both of which stockholders might miss), Google appears to be doing everything it can.  With that in mind, then, it seems reasonable that the LatLong Blog is offering an animation of Cyclone Nargis’s movement.  Weather buffs are sure to find it interesting, and Google Earth fans almost always enjoy new things.

For the record, the BBC reports that aid is beginning to arrive in Myanmar, but CNN is running scary new death toll estimates.

Citizen Journalists Report On Myanmar

Citizen journalists are using cell phone cameras, text messaging and the Internet to report on the Myanmar government’s effort to control media coverage and downplay the protests.

Sein Win, managing editor of Missima News, an India-based news group run by exiled dissidents told CNN, "The technology is making a huge difference. Now everyone in the world can know what is happening in Burma (Myanmar) via the Internet, It is a reality of globalization. Whether the junta likes it or not, the government cannot isolate itself from the international community."

The AP, Reuters and other media outlets have published photos given to them by exile media organizations including Mizzima, Irrawaddy, and the Democratic Voice of Burma. Talking about his correspondents, Aung Zaw, editor of Irrawaddy, told the Wall Street Journal, "They are doing their job on the ground, and nobody is even giving them the assignment. It is our job to check again with our sources, to see how close to the truth it is."

Reporters Without Borders ranks Myanmar 164 out of 168 for being one of the most repressed media in the world. Despite the regime’s efforts to censor media, Myanmarese bloggers have been able to get around firewalls set up to stop the flow of information in and out of the country.

Irrawaddy’s Aung Zaw sums up the situation saying, "The more they try to suppress information, the more will come out."

Now, the Internet allows dissidents and protesters of all kinds to get information out of totalitarian countries much more quickly (although there are still restrictions that authoritarian regimes — such as those in North Korea and China — can use to make Internet access difficult or even impossible).

The latest example of this phenomenon in action is the steady flow — or at least trickle — of information that has come out of Myanmar over the past week, as hundreds of thousands of Buddhist monks have taken to the streets to protest the totalitarian rule of the military junta that controls the country (formerly known as Burma). Although many of the posts are written in English, some are unreadable because they are written in Burmese, the language spoken by citizens of Myanmar (which is related to languages spoken in Tibet and China).

As a story in The Age notes, posting photos on blogs or even sending them via cellphone can put a Myanmar resident at risk of arrest, or worse. One blogger known as Moezack was posting photos of the protests regularly, according to a Myanmar native who runs a website for ex-patriates in Thailand, but his blog has since gone dark. Another prominent blog that has been posting updates comes from someone called Ko-Htike, who appears to work in the emergency department of a Myanmar hospital. He has been posting his thoughts as well as photos.

Another blogger named Mr. Jade has also been posting photos of the protests, including recent attacks on monks by Myanmar police and members of the army. According to at least one report, the army has been dressing soldiers in local police uniforms to try and disguise the fact that the military is part of the crackdown. One place Myanmar residents and ex-patriates have been getting information about the protests is a newspaper-style website called Mizzima. The site won an award from the International Press Institute earlier this year for its reporting.

Global Voices Online, a blog network spanning dozens of countries that was put together by Rebecca MacKinnon and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, has also been carrying news updates and commentary from bloggers in Southeast Asia related to the Myanmar protests. And so has another site for Myanmar ex-patriates called The Irrawaddy.

A blog called Justice and Injustice has photos pf the protests and a statement from someone named Aung Way that says: “We want three Fs. First we want freedom — we want freedom for our future; second, we want friendship — we want friendship between our army and our people; third, we want food — we want food to live peacefully.”

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