With telecommunications centres flooded and cell phone networks out of service, the Indian Army turned to social media to locate stranded Kashmiris in need of rescue during six days of flooding earlier this month. “In a near communications vacuum, 3G Internet connections remained usable, and those lucky enough to have them found themselves inundated with distress calls,” the Times reported. Twitter India commissioned a new piece of code to separate reports of stranded people from the crush of general news about the flood, and the army assisted about 12,000 people whose cases were reported over social networks.
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