We have in the past looked at ‘before and after’ pictures of devastating natural disasters such as earth quakes, tornados and tsunamis.
The Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 occurred before GEB started, when Google Earth was still Keyhole Earth. Instead of just looking at ‘before and after’ pictures showing the devastation, it is now possible to see the recovery since then, with the help of Digital Globe imagery and an Esri map titled Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami: Then and Now. It displays Digital Globe imagery from just after the Tsunami and compares it with recent imagery.
Google Earth has some, but not all of the imagery used in the above map, nevertheless it is worth exploring the locations further using Google Earth’s historical imagery. To help you find the locations in Google Earth, download this KML file
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The aircraft seen in the park was there before the Tsunami.
This story was found via Google Maps Mania.
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
I have put up a number of my photographs from on the ground in Banda Aceh taken about 10 days after the tsunami compared with others taken from the same locations 10 years later. Please scroll through the slideshows and have a look:
http://www.jocabo.net/banda-aceh-then-and-now/