Man Finds Long-Lost Mother with Help of Google Earth

If you consider Google Earth to be a useful tool, then imagine how the man who found his long-lost mother via the service feels about it. Saroo Brierley, at age five, got separated from his brother when he fell asleep at a train station in India. After hopping on a train in hopes of finding him, he fell asleep only to wake up fourteen hours later in a shady part of some town. Being only five-years-old, he was effectively lost and didn’t know where to go.

With the help of Google Earth, Saroo meticulously scanned various towns around India to see if anything seemed familiar. When he found the city he ultimately wound up in at five-years-old, he did some calculations to see where the train he got off of would have been fourteen hours earlier. Lo and behold, he found a town with a recognizable dam and waterfall.

When he went to his hometown and found his old house, it looked like no one had lived there for some time. But after showing some strangers on the street a photo from when he was five, someone recognized it and then reunited him with his mother. I can only imagine the thoughts and emotions that were rushing through him at that moment.

This is a rather incredible story, and proves that services such as Google Earth and many others can be used for important things just as well as they can be used for fun or convenience.