Ahead of Looming Typhoon, Google Rolls Out Public Alerts For Natural Disasters in Taiwan

Typhoons and flash floods are the two biggest natural disaster dangers in Taiwan’s tropical climate. And with another threat looming in the form of Typhoon Soulik, currently over 1,000 kilometres away but on a crash course with the island, Google has rolled out Public Alerts for Taiwan.

As explained by the Google.org blog this afternoon, the Google Public Alerts for Taiwan will be visible to residents when they visit Google’s search page, Google Maps, or use Google Now, the company’s smartphone assistant for Android and iPhone.

In addition to those alerts, there’s already a dedicated Google Crisis Map for Taiwan with all the latest info on the next typhoon that’s swooping in. This is what it looks like right now:

Google enabled the same alerts across its services in Japan earlier this year.

In Google’s blog post, the company applauds Taiwanese authorities for being more open with its data and for making a “commitment to opening this data to the public” which “enables Google and others to make critical and life-saving information more widely available.”

Hopefully this looming typhoon – which could also hit eastern coastal areas of China and possibly go as far as Shanghai – won’t amass enough energy to cause devastation across the region.

(Editing by Enricko Lukman and Anh-Minh Do)