posted on Sep, 29 2014 @ 09:40 AM
NHK News
The team began by studying tweets made during a storm that cause a landslide in southern Japan 2 years ago.
A number of posts on the day include the phrase "the ground is rumbling," indicating the writers were facing imminent risk. The researchers hope to
develop a system that will make the community share that sense of danger and urgency.
Masaru Kunitomo, who joined the team from the National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management, says the warning signs were published on
Twitter almost immediately. "Tweets describing ominous rumblings appeared at the same time as reports of noises from the ground and mountains," he
says. "I think it will be useful to collect such information and use it as an early warning sign. It could help us evacuate people."
A computer system will scan tweets for keywords that could indicate landslides, such as "ground rumbling." Alerts would then be sent to local
governments, as well as residents.
According to NHK News, Japanese researchers are looking at twitter for that very answer.
There in Japan, right before this latest round of landslides someone noticed some people were posting some rather ominous tweets just 'Before'
disaster struck.
“I can feel the ground shaking under my feet”
“I have this copper taste in my mouth”
“The air feels funny today”
“My body feels heavy”
Those researchers are only just now getting started so they have nothing definitive yet. But they say there's a great deal of promise and right now
are trying to identify 'key words' that might signal a forth coming disaster. How much warning has yet to be determined but looking at past tweets,
there might be up to several days warning, if this all pans out.
They also went on to say that it seems women are better able to make these kinds of predictions. And yet that too is only guesswork due to the
generally anonymous nature of twitter.
Again let me say this is all in the very beginning stages of research. Way, way to early to say what if anything will come of it. Yet as a kid, I had
an Aunt was always making predictions. Mostly about very mundane things. Still she was right more often than not. Then when you take into account how
some animals can tell when an earthquake is about to hit. Well maybe there is something to this twitter deal?
All I can say is, it'll be interesting to see how this all turns out...