On November 8 last week, a devastating typhoon swept across the Philippines and has wrecked havoc in the country. In the wake of its catastrophic effects, humanitarian organizations, aid agencies and hundreds of volunteers from the world are jointly pushing the humanitarian efforts forward.

We at Kathmandu Living Labs are also doing our bit. For the past two days now, KLL has been organizing mapathons in order to aid humanitarian efforts in the Philippines. Around 15 people from KLL and few students from Kathmandu University have been mapping damaged buildings, road networks, impassable roads, especially in the Tacloban region, the area that was worst affected by typhoon Haiyan. Some of the experienced mappers are also looking into validation of tasks in the task manager. And few others are busy in creating cheat sheets and quick tutorials on how to expedite mapping efforts in the region.

We can only imagine how futile and small our efforts could be in this monumental task of bringing the Philippines out of this crisis. But we are doing our bit. We hope anyone reading this blog would do theirs’. Philippines need us right now.

See here for different groups that are organizing mapping events in different parts of the world: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Typhoon_Haiyan#Passed_Events

One way to aid the humanitarian efforts going on for the Haiyan affected people is to contribute to the OpenStreetMap. Maps play instrumental role in locating victims, routing aid efforts and assessing damage.