Google has launched a tool that to help find people in Haiti. Users can access it from the Google Web site and embed it in their own applications and web sites. All the information, Google warns, will be publicly available and unverified.

The largest victim recording site is run by the Red Cross, but Google engineers have volunteered to aggregate information from other sites, often using screen scraping, to provide a common data source for information about people in Haiti - so people on the island can register themselves and victims, and people living outside can search for friends and family.

In addition to needing food, water, shelter, and medical treatment, disaster victims and emergency/aid workers in Haiti need to be able to communicate.

Telecoms Sans Frontieres (TSF), translated as Telecommunications Without Borders, is an aid organization based in France that aims to provide reliable communications systems to people hit by disaster, as well as to governments and emergency responders. The group has established two calling centers in Port-au-Prince since a devastating earthquake hit Haiti on January 12.