A massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean nearby Northeastern Japan at around 2:46pm on March 11 (JST) causing damage with blackouts, fire and tsunami. On this page we are providing the information regarding the disaster and damage with realtime updates.

Complete with emergency numbers in Japan, message boards, transportation information, and maps, the interactive Crisis Response site primarily offers the chance to report information about missing or injured persons or to request information about someone possibly affected by the quake.

Originally created after the Haiti earthquake and recently deployed in response to the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand last month, the tool was built by Google’s “philanthropic arm, Google.org.” Since the project is open-source there have been non-Google contributors in addition to Google’s Crisis Response team.

For more information on the disaster or the project, go to the Person Finder site directly.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.