11 February-Turkey-Syria earthquake: The US space agency’s administrator Bill Nelson said the teams of experts are working hard to provide valuable information from the Earth-observing fleet to the rescue workers. NASA is using its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) which can watch the earth in all weather conditions day and night.
This satellite image obtained, courtesy of Planet Labs, Inc. shows a SkySat image captured on February 7, showing the city of Kahramanmaras after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkey earlier in the week. (AFP)
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is sharing its aerial images and data to assist rescue efforts in Turkey and Syria, which have been ravaged by earthquakes.
The US space agency’s administrator Bill Nelson said the teams of experts are working hard to provide valuable information from the Earth-observing fleet to the rescue workers. NASA is using its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) which can watch the earth in all weather conditions day and night. It is used to measure how the ground moves and built landscape changes after an earthquake, the agency posted on its website.
A team of scientists at the Earth Observatory of Singapore and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory collected images before and after the earthquake and created a ‘damage proxy map’ for Turkey.
These proxy maps compare before and after radar images of the earthquake to see how the landscape changed after the devastating tragedy. The agency’s Earth Science Applied Sciences, national and international collaborates make these proxy maps available to the US State Department, the California Seismic Safety Commission, the World Bank and the Miyamoto Global Disaster Relief.
The NASA members not only provide observations and maps through the Disaster Mapping Portal, they are also involved in coordination calls by the US Agency for International Development.
NASA’s disaster coordinator for Turkey-Syria earthquake Lori Schulz said the agency does not know who uses the information disseminated by the agency, but they have heard the World Central Kitchen has used the information to provide food to the people displaced. The NASA scientists are using space and ground-based observations to improve ability to decode the events arising from the natural disaster.
