Survivors of the Paris attacks seeking shelter and people worried about friends or families all took to social media overnight following a wave of attacks in the French capital that killed 128.
Survivors of the Paris attacks seeking shelter and people worried about friends or families all took to social media overnight following a wave of attacks in the French capital that killed 128.
Using the hashtag #rechercheParis, many posted poignant appeals on Twitter to find loved ones who had been close to the bloodshed which hit six locations including at the Stade de France national stadium and a rock concert at Bataclan theatre.
“If anyone has news of Lola, aged 17, at #Bataclan this evening, contact us,” read one post, while another expressed concern for a friend Thibault, who was also at the concert. “He’s not getting back to me: help me”, it read.
Others who managed to track down their loved ones tweeted their gratitude: “Thanks to all for your RT (retweets), Alice Q is alive!”
France’s interior ministry also set up an official platform www.Securite.Interieur.Gouv.Fr asking for any information “that may be useful to advance the investigation, identify the victims and warn of new acts”.
It said the police would “quickly contact” users looking for missing people. Some Twitter feeds remained ominously silent after initially announcing the start of the concert at the Bataclan, where more than 80 people were killed by gunmen wielding AK47s. Eight attackers struck numerous locations around the capital, leaving over 130 people dead on Friday night, in the worst bloodshed in Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
Thousands of Parisians used the hashtag #PorteOuverte (open door) to offer places to stay for people left stranded — particularly in areas that had been attacked — as police ramped up security measures, cordoning off the areas that were hit and partially suspending public transport. The hashtag was re-posted 480,000 times throughout the night.
