News

22 January 2010

e-GEOS provides aid agencies with satellite maps of Lèogâne and Jacmel, two cities hit by the earthquake in Haiti

e-GEOS (a Telespazio/Italian Space Agency company) is providing maps of  road conditions in the Haitian areas of Jacmel and Léogâne, the earthquake's epicentre, to the United Nations, the World Food Programme (WFP), the Italian Civil Protection Department, the Italian ministries of foreign affairs (crisis units) and defence, and the Spanish Red Cross. The areas, located a few dozen kilometres from the capital Port au Prince, have been awaiting aid operations for some time due to poor road conditions and inefficient co-ordination of relief following the disaster.

Initial relief efforts only reached the two centres, sadly known as ghost cities, a few hours ago, while the Rapid Mapping Team,  e-GEOS's task force of engineers, is continuing to produce data and analysis on road conditions in the area and is working to obtain damage assessment maps.

The work was carried out under the European Commission's G-MOSAIC (GMES Services for the Management of Operations, Situation Awareness and Intelligence for Regional Crises) project.

Lèogâne, Haiti, damage assessment.
This picture shows a detail of the damage assessment map generated by e-GEOS engineers as part of the G-MOSAIC project. The map shows the condition of the buildings: a red dot shows damage and a blue one indicates a camp erected by evacuees.

Part of the same image in more detail

Lèogâne, Haiti, road condition map.
This picture shows a detail of the road condition map generated by e-GEOS engineers as part of the G-MOSAIC project. On the map, road conditions are indicated using different colours: red shows that a road is impassable due to the damage caused by the earthquake, while orange roads are only partially passable and green indicates roads that are in a usable condition.

Part of the same image in more detail