Our Spatial Planet

Displacement Map from TerraSAR-X

The largest disaster of 2010 so far continues to unfold. Aftershocks are hitting Haiti. Understanding the dynamics of the fault is crucial for planning evacuation and relief operations. TerraSAR-X can image the whole affected area independent of cloud conditions. Using correlation matching DLR extracted the east-west and north-south shifts. The results show upto 2.8m shift along the fault line.

The openlayers project and telascience have started putting together a web portal for the data flowing through from the disaster charter and other sources. EROS imagery shown in the previous post will be available soon.

Haiti UAV Imagery

On Tuesday 12th January 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the Caribean country of Haiti.The epicenter was only 10 miles away from the capital Port-au-Prince. 75000 people have been confirmed dead and the death toll is likely to rise. Infrastructures have been hit badly and and satellites images show the extent of the damage. Multiple images from ImageSat International EROS-A and EROS-B satellites are being acquired over the devasted area of Port-au-Prince and surounding areas. The images are donated to any agencies which can benefit from them. Please contact Apogee for any requests. The extent of the damage as well as thousands of people gathered in public squares can be seen in the subset images below.

Overview of Haiti and location of the epicenter of the 7.0 magnitude Earthquake which has struck near the capital Port-au-Prince

Port-au-Prince international airport where relief workers are setting up temporary shelters around the runway.

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Cathedral before and after the earthquake.
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Presidential Palace before and after the earthquake.

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People gathered in public squares before and after the earthquake.

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Buildings before and after the earthquake.

Please contact Apogee for any requests regarding imagery over the affected areas of Port-au-Prince.

A giant iceberg known as B17B broke off Antartica’s Ross Ice Shelf 10 years ago and had drifted 1,700 kilometers from Australia’s coast. Since December, the iceberg has been slowly breaking up and melting due to warmer water.

The image below has been acquired with TerraSAR-X on the 15th December and clearly shows the main iceberg breaking up into fragments.

A recent image taken by NASA from the EO-1 satellite can be seen at:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=42234