tsunami

Landslide and Tsunami in Greenland

June 22, 2017

Last Saturday, on 17th June, a landslide in Greenland caused a tidal wave, killing four people and injuring nine in the community of Nuugaatsiaq. Two other communities, Igdlorssuit and Viaqornat, were apparently affected. Read more about it on the Landslide Blog.

We thought it would be interesting to see the area in Google Earth using Sentinel-2 imagery. We downloaded the Sentinel-2 image from 19th June, 2017 and imported it into Google Earth:

The relative positions of the landslide and Nuugaatsiaq.Copernicus Sentinel data, 2017.

The distance between the landslide and the village of Nuugaatsiaq is about 30 km. Igdlorssuit is about 60km from the landslide site and Viaqornat just over 100 km.

The region as seen in Google Earth imagery.

The village of Nuugaatsiaq as seen in a DigitalGlobe image from 2012.

Here is a YouTube video showing the Tsunami arriving at Nuugaatsiaq:

To see the relevant section of the Sentinel-2 image in Google Earth, download this KML file
.

The 2004 tsunami: then and now

January 27, 2015

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.

The aircraft seen in the park was there before the Tsunami.

This story was found via Google Maps Mania.

Japanese disaster imagery, one year later

March 12, 2012

It’s been a year since the huge earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, and Google has released fresh imagery to show the recovery made by Japan over the past 12 months.
The new imagery was captured during the past month, and covers almost the entire northeastern coastline of Japan from Hachinohe down to Hitachi City. As you can see from some of the snapshots below, the improvements made to the country in the past year are quite remarkable.
Here is a bridge from Minami Sanriku Town, Miyagi:

Another great example that Google featured was from Shiogama Port, Miyagi:

To head over there to see the imagery for yourself, simply fly to Japan in Google Earth or use this KML file

Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

to be automatically flown to that part of the country. It’s heartwarming to see how well the rebuilding effort has been going, and hopefully they’ll be able to continue to put the pieces back into place.
(via Google Lat Long Blog)

Historical Street View imagery for Japan

December 13, 2011

One of the neatest features added to Google Earth in the past few years is the Historical Imagery added in Google Earth 5. Being able to go back in time and few older imagery is such a neat thing to do.
Now that Google is starting to roll out fresh Street View imagery around the world, we’re getting a glimpse of a somewhat similar feature in there. There’s two parts to this:
First, Google has created a special “Build the Memory” site for imagery in Japan, allowing you to see before and after shots of towns affected by the earthquake and tsunami.

It’s not a full-fledged “historical” view, since it’s only for Japan, but it’s a very neat way to see that imagery.
The also added the oft-requested feature of putting dates on the Street View imagery. It’s been a fun game to try to determine when imagery was captured, but now they tell you the month and year right on the imagery while you’re viewing it!

The dates don’t appear when you’re using Street View inside of Google Earth, but I would expect that’ll be coming in a future update.
You can read more about these updates on the Google Lat Long Blog.

The Japanese Tsunami created some massive icebergs

August 10, 2011

When the earthquake (and subsequent tsunami) struck Japan earlier this year, we provided as much data as possible about the disaster. What many people didn’t realize was that the tsunami continued to travel across the ocean, eventually striking Antarctica with a great deal of force. This caused some flexing and breaking of the Sulzberger Ice Shelf, which resulted in two large icebergs being released, reminicient of the chunk of the Wilkins Ice Shelf that broke off a few years ago. Combined, the icebergs cover an area of 125 square kilometers, or more than twice the size of New York’s Manhattan Island!

You can find the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Google Earth using this KML file

, though I was unable to overlay the high-res images from NASA due to the poor imagery quality in that area of Google Earth. If you’re able to align it properly, send us your file and we’ll update this post.
NASA has also put together a brief video showing how all of this occurred:

[UPDATE: User ‘McMaster_de” was able to put together the image overlay, and it looks great!]
You can download the KMZ file here.

If you turn on the “Borders and Labels” layer in Google Earth, you’ll see the yellow outlines match up quite well with the dark patches in the overlay, as seen here:

Great work, McMaster_de!