No, right now - this minute?
By now, I'm sure we are all aware about the magnitude 6.5 earthquake off off the California coast on yesterday (Saturday 9th Jan).
No? Strange. Big news in the LA Times here and here. See this mashable article for some of the on the ground pictures of the Eureka earthquake.
Yet there has been zero coverage on any of the regular UK news media. Why didn't we hear about it? Well without being sombre - probably because no one died.
OK, Chris so how did you find out about it? - One word: twitter.
STOP!!
Before you close this page thinking I'm just someone one else banging on about bloomin twitter and how I couldn't live without out it - I'm not.
All I will say is that increasingly these days, twitter is there first with the news and pictures from the source of the story - or those very close to it. Far sooner than any other news source.
Yea, yea yea - I know, you've heard it all before.
But consider this; turning the whole twitter thing on it's head and using it to track events around the world - as they happen.
With a few selected self updating twitter search feeds and a bit of html to hold it all together, you can find out what's happening in any of the following areas all from one web page:
- Earthquakes (had to be on there really didn't it!)
- Hurricanes / Tornadoes / Cyclones
- Floods
- Volcanos
- Heavy Snow / Avalanches (topical at the moment - great pic here)
- Tsunami
Hmm interested now? Yea I know, it's worth a quick peak - just to see if anything is happening:
Now, I don't suggest you spend every waking hour in front of this site, just bookmark it and check in now and then.
And if you do hear of some natural disaster going on in the regular news media, you can bet that just visiting the tracker, it will get you more up to date with the real story than any 24 hour news service could...
- Chris