Rome -- As tsunami warnings go out across the Pacific in the
wake of the massive earthquake in Japan, the latest information
on the disaster and its effects is appearing in real time on
www.hewsweb.org, a comprehensive humanitarian early warning web
platform which has just gone live. The Humanitarian Early
Warning Service platform, which anyone can consult, collects and
displays critical information from a range of high quality
sources, including seismic data from the US Geological Survey.
The new platform was launched on Thursday, after an extensive
overhaul. "It's come just in time," says Amy Horton, head of
WFP's Emergency Preparedness division. "People are downloading
maps and consulting the most current information." A dedicated
tsunami page is currently being constructed. Hewsweb carries the
latest maps from emergency and disaster zones. Right now, there
are detailed seismic maps of the Japan earthquake and of the
provinces of the Philippines that have been placed on tsunami
alert. Of the countries wher