A new aid game App from Save the Children Australia gives users the chance to experience what it’s like to try to respond to a natural disaster in real time with peoples’ lives hanging in the balance, according to a recent Reuters article. On the organization’s website, the free App is billed as “the world’s first disaster response game App for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.” In the App, users are challenged to save lives as quickly as possible as complications mount and casualties rise. The App is meant to give users a real sense of the extent of the human toll that natural disasters can have along with the difficulties, resources, and skills that are involved in trying to minimize those losses and care for the people at risk.
In 2010 alone, there have already been more than 80 natural disasters according to Australia’s Canberra Times. The earthquake in Haiti, flooding in Pakistan, wild fires and heat wave in Russia, and volcanic ash in Europe are among the major disasters with heavy media coverage. The human tolls from these disasters include: 230,000 killed, 300,000 injured, and 1 million homeless in Haiti alone; 10 million people in need of food aid for at least a year in Pakistan; and 11,000 people killed in the Moscow heat wave. A host of lesser-known cases range from mudslides and floods in Nepal and Central America to cyclones in Mexico and typhoons in Vietnam and the Philippines.
To download the free App, go to the Save the Children Australia website or search “Save the Children Earthquake” in your iTunes App store.
For more articles on foreign aid and development, see Haiti Needs Our Help and the Aid & Development page.
Check out the Global Sherpa home page to see everything the site has to offer!
Sources:
Dvorak, Susan. We Need to Be Prepared Before Disasters Strike. Canberra Times. October 13, 2010.
Lies, Elaine. Quake Relief iGame Aims to Raise Aid Work Awareness. Reuters. October 12, 2010.