Wednesday 15 August at 23 hours 40 minutes and 57 seconds UTC, an earthquake of magnitude 8 on the Richter scale shook Peru’s coastline and the capital city Lima. The quake flattened 70% of the city of Pisco, spreading panic among its 130,000 inhabitants. A comparison of a SPOT 5 satellite image acquired 21 August and an archive image of 10 January 2006 highlights the trail of destruction. The streets crisscrossing the city are lying under rubble and collapsed buildings show up in the different texture of the post-quake image. Such texture differences make it possible to measure the exact extent of quake damage.

EKODES has posted a geographic information system (GIS) on its dedicated server containing archive and post-quake imagery of the main affected areas. The fully dynamic GIS is being used by Peruvian and international institutions responding to the disaster, which include the Red Cross, the United Nations and the European Union. This initiative is helping to ensure effective coordination of the relief effort among different teams, providing a range of perspectives and thematic data. The GIS will be populated regularly with fresh information from cooperating institutions and any new imagery that Spot Image is able to contribute.

For Spot Image and EKODES, the initiative is another important step following the hazard management project put together last year in an Andean zone where landslides and mudslides left 70,000 dead 30 years ago.

The response to this latest natural disaster is a further illustration that satellite remote-sensing systems are a key aid in hazard mitigation and post-disaster reconstruction.