DU students launch website to coordinate flood relief efforts

In response to the flash floods that are ravaging through several districts across Bangladesh, a group of students from the Department of Software Engineering at the Institute of Information Technology (IIT), University of Dhaka has developed Emergency Flood Aid Network, an online platform to support relief efforts. On August 25, the students officially launched this website designed to coordinate relief efforts and help those affected by the floods.

The website has a search bar at the top, allowing users to search by district, upazila, name, phone number, or other keywords, in both Bengali and English. The platform also features colour-coded upazila-wise help requests, with darker colours indicating areas of higher need.

For those in need of assistance, the site displays data cards detailing rescue or relief requests, complete with addresses, phone numbers, and Google Maps locations. Volunteers can also be contacted via the 'Reach Ground Team' tab, and a separate section allows users to check the current status of ongoing rescue and relief operations. There are also options to filter by status which shows unprocessed, processing and resolved status of any operation listed on the site.

At least 38 people are actively working on this initiative. Fahmid Ahmed, one of the website's creators, said, "The creation of this website was driven by the urgent need for a centralised platform where information could be managed effectively. Priority is being given to the verification of information. We plan on AI integration but that is going to take more time."

The platform is also encouraging social media users to utilise the hashtag #bangladeshflood2024 when sharing flood-related updates to help with data aggregation.

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