Japan Mulls '911' Emergency Calls from Social Networks

Japan's disaster management officials are considering alternative solutions to emergency calls in natural disasters. A panel met in Tokyo for preliminary talks on the possible use of alternative web-based solutions such as Twitter, Yahoo, local chat lines and social networks. But during large-scale natural disasters, such as the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan's east coast last year, voice networks often clog up under the dual strain of damaged infrastructure and a sudden surge of lengthy voice calls