Facebook has added Mount Agung’s eruption as a natural disaster event so users can mark themselves as “safe”.
In Facebook’s Safety Check feature, netizens can show their concerned Facebook friends that they are safe in the event of an emergency and can check on the statuses of friends in the area. They can also seek and offer help in categories like food, transportation, water, etc.
It’s not quite clear why Facebook decided to activate Safety Check in Bali just now, as the volcano has already been erupting for multiple days, but it may have something to do with the ash fall triggering a closure of the airport and the trending topic #stuckinBali.
Can I just point out something…
So many people are saying that an eruption at #Agung is imminent…It is erupting now and has been for > 2 days! This IS an eruption, the eruption IS occurring now. There is a risk of a larger eruption, but this IS an erupting volcano. pic.twitter.com/pNgJRXbzdv
— Dr Janine Krippner (@janinekrippner) November 28, 2017
Bali’s Mount Agung, located in Karangasem, about 75 kilometers from the tourist hub of Kuta, started erupting last week when it belched thick ash and steam in a phreatic or steam pressure eruption. Fears for a larger eruption loom as the nature of Agung’s eruptions has shifted from phreatic to magmatic, and ash blown into flight paths has caused the island’s airport to be shutdown for the past two days.
While Bali remains safe outside of the danger zone, which spans a radius of 10 kilometers from the volcano’s crater, the feature can especially come in handy for the thousands who are evacuating from the exclusion zone and need to communicate that they made it safely out in all the chaos. Or simply, for those who want to broadcast to their Facebook friends outside of Bali, who may not be as aware of the geography (that Agung is actually far from where most tourists stay in Bali), that they are indeed okay.
Find the page, which Facebook titled “The Volcanic Eruption, in Bali” here.
Facebook rolled out the feature in 2011, but up until the Paris Attacks in 2015, the feature had only been used for natural disasters.
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