Humanitarian aid workers responding to devastating flooding in Honduras have received assistance from space, with satellite images of affected areas provided rapidly following activation of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced and 33 lives have been claimed by floods and landslides brought on by a tropical depression that hit the Central American country on 16th October.
On 27th October, the UN Institute for Training and Research (Unitar) Operational Satellite Applications Programme (Unosat) asked the International Charter on ‘Space and Major Disasters’, referred to as ‘The Charter’, for support. Satellite images of the area acquired by ESA’s Envisat were delivered the same day.
The crisis image of the Cortes Department, one of the hardest hit areas, is comprised of two Envisat radar images – one acquired on 25 October and one on 20 September that was used as a reference.
The flooding is being compared to the devastation left by Hurricane Mitch, which killed about 6 000 people when it ripped through Honduras a decade ago. Overall, Mitch claimed more than 10 000 lives across Central America.
Today, the Charter has 10 members, including ESA, CNES, CSA, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the Argentine Space Agency (Conae), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa), the British National Space Centre/Disaster Monitoring Constellation (BNSC/DMC), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
Source: ESA