YouTube spotlights Haiti earthquake
| Boston
The video website YouTube is running a full-court press on Haiti in the wake of the 7.0 earthquake that rocked the tiny Caribbean island nation Monday evening.
Video from the Red Cross explaining the severity of the earthquake, 360-degree cellphone video clips of Haitians standing aghast at the rubble this morning, and injured people being carried through the streets of Port-au-Prince by the light of dawn are some of the videos packed front and center into YouTube's "Spotlight" section.
The majority of the site's "Recommended for You" section is related to Haiti - some of it grainy, shaky clips of the damage, some of it Americans offering solidarity from behind their computers, some of it average joes playing newscaster, and one photo montage of the disaster set to Michael Jackson's "Earth Song" and asking for help and prayers.
With telecommunications down in Haiti, there is still a dearth of information coming out of the island this morning.
And, at a time when many Haitians and Haitian-Americans in the US remain unable to reach their relatives to see if they are alive, the YouTube clips afford some of the only footage immediately available.
Return here for updates on Haiti throughout the day.
