SAFER team on duty after earthquake in Haïti

Shortly after the event, SAFER, the GMES Emergency response Service, has been triggered by the World Food Programme, the European Commission and the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters.
Since then, SAFER partners have put all their resources and means to help to the rush production of damage assessment maps and reference maps. Among satellite images available, SPOT5 data provided by Spot Image have been used to process these maps.
This represents about 25 persons involved at Infoterra France (who assumes a 24h service to coordinate these operations), at SERTIT and DLR (who produce crisis maps).
Several products have already been delivered to users involved in the rescue and humanitarian relief actions, and are available on SAFER website.

More products will be provided thanks to new tasked acquisitions, especially on a wider area, located south and south west of Port au Prince city. Indeed, due to epicentre localisation, it clearly appears that damages and injured people are not confined to the main town, but that a larger zone is concerned, which will unfortunately lead to even more casualties, dead persons and collapsed houses and buildings.

Catherine Ashton, Vice President/High Representative for Foreign Affairs has stressed the importance of satellite images provided by the Global Monitoring System (GMES) in support of the coordination of the efforts on the ground.