After an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit northern Japan today, impacting an area stretching all the way to the East Coast, social media is playing just as big of a role – if not a more significant one – than it did during the Egyptian turbulence. All the major carriers in Japan, including NTT DoCoMo, Softbank and Au were affected, and subsequently voice calls and SMS messaging services are either offline or extremely limited. This is why the Japanese people and locals are turning to social networking and Twitter to communicate and find from-the-scene data assembled from individual takes.

From CNET:

“I saw a lot of people on the street talking on cell phones, but also long lines for every remaining pay phone,” said Brian Chapman, a journalist living in Tokyo. “Facebook and Skype are proving to be the best ways to keep in touch. An on-the-scene reporter said a lot of people near the most damaged areas are getting a lot of their TV info from watching TV on their cell phones, because regular TVs aren’t working.”

Twitter, Facebook and Japanese social network Mixi emerged as vital communication channels amidst a national-scale disaster and infrastructure collapse. Google also responded, with a new version of the Person Finder, a big data aggregation tool used during the Christchurch earthquake, aimed to help the Japanese locate or find information about missing persons, as well as access other vital data, such as map updates. The LA Times reports over 440 people are confirmed dead, and online communication channels as well as Person Finder, which currently lists over 5,500 records aggregated in real-time, are growing in importance by the second.

Justmeans reports the US Geological Survey which maintains the @earthquake feed and Google Earth real-time earthquake view, found that spikes in Twitter activity from affected populations occurred in a matter of seconds after a quake, compared to the 2-20 minutes it takes to release scientific alerts. The USGS also reports Japan-related traffic represented nearly 12% of all Twitter traffic, with tweets and individual data bits from locals, the US Navy’s Pacific fleet and others constantly building a real-time picture of the situation that’s both facilitated and distributed via social media. This real-time picture provides data on every possible aspect of the situation, and directly aids affected people throughout the crisis.  Our thoughts are with all of those affected by the quake.