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Haiti, one year after the earthquake
January 12, 2011
It’s been one year since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, and governments and NGOs are continuing to respond, many using high-resolution images of the area. To support these efforts, we’ve updated our aerial imagery in Google Earth of the Port-au-Prince area to include images from before and after the earthquake, as well as made updates throughout 2010. These pictures provide an evolving view of the movement of people, supplies and rubble.
To access this imagery directly, use the
Historical Imagery feature of Google Earth
.
Complementing our online efforts with this imagery, a
webpage
and crisis response tools such as
Person Finder
, Google has made an effort to contribute to relief in Haiti by providing technical and financial support to NGOs. These organizations such as
Doctors Without Borders
and
Partners in Health
and specific technology NGOs such as
Samasource
and
Frontline SMS
continue to help the Haitian people. We’ve looked to them to help us guide our ongoing response to this crisis.
In November, we gathered updated aerial imagery, and sent a second wave of Google teams to Haiti to evaluate our earlier response efforts and see where Google could continue to provide help. We met with local Haitians and technology NGOs under tents, in trailers, in Internet cafes and at restaurants.
From these visits we witnessed the difficulty involved in using our mapping tools under the unpredictable nature of the Internet in Haiti, and so have focused on developing better offline capabilities and have proposed ideas for
improving overall Internet access in Haiti
. We also ran training for aid workers on our collaborative tools like Google Apps, which can help coordinate resources. While there, we spent time understanding how NGOs are combating the
cholera epidemic
, and brainstorming tools that could help aid workers produce specialized maps of epidemic case data and chlorination levels at water points, which are critical for planning and prevention.
If you’re interested in helping with Google’s efforts in Haiti, you can:
Support our open source Crisis Response projects such as
Person Finder
or attend conferences like the
Random Hacks of Kindness
.
Volunteer with NGOs working on Crisis Response technology such as
Crisis Commons
and
Ushahidi
.
Our experience and the updated imagery demonstrate that there are still significant needs on the ground in Haiti. We’re continuing our efforts to support locals and NGOs and look forward to seeing how technology will continue to help both Haitians and victims of disasters worldwide.
Posted by Prem Ramaswami, Product Manager, on behalf of Google Crisis Response
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