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Over 7 Million People In Nepal Used Facebook Safety Check

Over 7 Million People In Nepal Used Facebook Safety Check
A Nepalese woman offers prayers in Kathmandu on May 2, 2015. Nepal has ruled out the possibility of finding more survivors buried in the rubble from a massive earthquake that killed more than 6,700 people and devastated vast swathes of one of Asia's poorest countries. AFP PHOTO/PRAKASH SINGH (Photo credit should read PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images)
PRAKASH SINGH via Getty Images
A Nepalese woman offers prayers in Kathmandu on May 2, 2015. Nepal has ruled out the possibility of finding more survivors buried in the rubble from a massive earthquake that killed more than 6,700 people and devastated vast swathes of one of Asia's poorest countries. AFP PHOTO/PRAKASH SINGH (Photo credit should read PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images)

NEW DELHI: Over seven million people in Nepal used Facebook to reach out to over 150 million friends and family members across the globe after last week's devastating earthquake, a company official said in a statement on Friday.

It also said that the social networking site raised over $10 million in just two days for the victims.

Mark Zuckerberg, one of the five co-founders of Facebook, said: "We activated 'safety check' and more than 7 million people in the area have been marked as safe.

"More than 150 million friends were notified and those updates let people rest easier and relief efforts remain focused."

The statement said that in addition, Facebook gave people the option to support local relief efforts and in just two days, more than half-a-million people donated and raised more than $10 million to support the relief effort.

We’ve seen our community come together in some amazing ways since the earthquake in Nepal. We activated Safety Check...

Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday, 30 April 2015

"Facebook will donate an additional $2 million to local recovery efforts to help those in affected areas," it added.

Furthermore, WhatsApp messenger - a web chat service owned by Facebook -- is being used in Nepal and across the region helping aid workers to coordinate and figure out how to get to affected areas.

"It is inspiring to see our community coming together to help people in their time of need," Zuckerberg said.

The toll in last week's temblor has so far crossed the 6,000-mark and is expected to touch 10,000.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.