Three years ago we told you about the effort to rebuild L’Aquila in 3D following a major earthquake in 2009. Graziano Di Crescenzo has an Italian blog about Google Earth and is very passionate about the product. He is in L’Aquila and is using Google Earth to keep people informed of the state of L’Aquila five years after the quake.
His new website, Hello L’Aquila shows the earthquake damaged central italian city of L’Aquila five years after the earthquake of April 6, 2009. Visitors can walk through the streets and squares of the city and inside some of its buildings using hundreds of user generated streetview images.
In Graziano’s words:
Over the course of three months, innumerable journeys were made through the streets of L’Aquila and to capture more than 400 panoramic images covering the entire historic city centre. These images were geopositioned and loaded into Google Maps, approved by Google and connected together to create a single network which allows visitors to the site to move freely through the earthquake damaged city.
All of the other images of the city centre of L’Aquila date back to August 2008 (prior to the earthquake) with a single recent update in 2011 covering the main square and a part of the main central street. Now, instead, it is possible to visit the entire city centre in its current state. The intention behind the project is to keep the panoramas up to date reflecting changes in the city.
Graziano worked with his friends Matteo Faraone, Barnaby Gunning and Massimo Prosperococco to bring the project to life. It’s quite an impressive project, and I encourage you to go check it out at www.hellolaquila.it.
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.