Dear Chamil, I did a quick search on Google Scholar and embed a link to the results. I believe experts in the field should be able to guide your thoughts further. Good luck.

https://scholar.google.co.za/scholar?as_ylo=2011&q=disaster+and+social+media&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

The communications director from Doctors Without Borders will be delivering a free webinar on how social media was used during the Ebola crisis. This web page has details for you: http://rampages.us/globalhealthandsocialmedia/

That website may have additional resources you can consult or perhaps you can reach out to them with your question.

Do not ignore old media like radio (battery driven) in the immediate aftermath. I have written on this in relation to the Christchurch earthquake. At that point mobiles overloaded networks...etc. and the clutter was difficult for emergency services to interpret. Radio stations were able to triage information, point people to best resources (both physical and websites etc). 

Media International Australia has articles related to communications during and after the Australian bushfires.

Best wishes with your research.

Ruth Zanker.

Hi Drs. Ungerer and Abrams. Thanks very much for the replies. I'm more on the side of online political action. So this field is totally new to me, and the links are helpful. Dr. Zanker, it's a great suggestion that I should not ignore the role played by old media. I was in Sri Lanka when 2004 Tsunami hit. The mobile lines were totally overloaded, the radios did a pretty good service. Thanks again. Chamil. 

I'm joining the conversation late but hopefully you might find it useful to have a look at the SUPER project, which among others deals with the use of social media (or social sensor) in the case of emergencies (e.g. flash floods): http://super-fp7.eu/

Hi Alexandru, thanks very much for the link. This is really interesting. 

Chamil

sympathy, empathy and apathy

  Dear Chamil, you can contact Françoise Papa from me, she has worked with his  laboratory on these issues, both in politics and sport : [email protected]

I'm not in the precise field of disaster responses in social media, but I'd recommend joining the Association of Internet Researchers mailing list and posting a question there - you get really good answers, and likely someone there is doing research on this exact topic. The AoIR conferences are excellent, too, though I don't see anything on your topic at the upcoming one in Phoenix, Arizona next month. The 2016 conference will be in Berlin. @rippingriffs How would you define technology, then? One definition is that all tools are technologies, including oil paints, brushes, etc.

http://aoir.org

http://aoir.org/mailing-lists/