14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has activated the Safety Check feature following the explosion that took place in Manchester last night, killing 22 people and injuring another 50.
The explosion occurred as people were leaving an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena. A second controlled detonation took place hours later, although it was revealed there was no actual suspicious object found, only clothing left behind in people's hurry to exit the building.
Safety Check asks people in the area of the incident to tell the rest of the world if they are safe, and publicly marks them as such. Therefore, if the lines are too busy and people can't be contacted by phone, at the very least their loved ones will know they are safe. Users can see which of their friends have marked themselves safe and asks those in the area if they are safe too.
A useful tool to have
In the past year, Facebook has activated Safety Check about 300 times, including during the recent Westminster terror attack, or after hurricane Matthew going through the Caribbean. Safety Check has been around since 2014 and the announcement was made as Zuckerberg was in Japan, which is quite fitting. Given how often Japan goes through earthquakes and how high the tsunami threat is in the area, this feature can be quite helpful here.
If you are in Manchester and were at the concert last night, it might be a good idea to mark yourself as safe, especially given the high count of injured people.
The British authorities are currently working to establish the full details of the incident, which is treated as a terrorist attack. It is yet unknown who is at the root of the attack. The sickening part is that the arena was full of children and teenagers who had come to see Ariana Grande in concert, which makes the attack that much worse.