what's that image

What’s that image: Earthquake and floods

May 3, 2016

Yesterday we mentioned that Google had pushed out an imagery update towards the end of April. Today we are having a look at some of the sights we have found so far.

On April 16th, 2016, Ecuador experienced an earthquake of magnitude 7.8. Google Earth has three satellite images captured the day after. All three images seem to have a bug where you cannot see the previous image in historical imagery but have to go back two dates to see prior imagery. Perdenales, Ecuador was not far from the epicentre of the earthquake and a number of buildings collapsed. The satellite imagery is not very high quality, but the devastation is visible if you look closely. To identify collapsed buildings, look for rubble in the streets rather than at the buildings, then compare with older imagery. See the fourth image in the slideshow in this story to see an aerial view.

Collapsed buildings in Perdenales, Ecuador.

Further south, in the town of Portoviejo we found a collapsed building as well as signs of minor flooding.

Collapsed building in Portoviejo, Ecuador.

The southern United States seems to have experienced a lot of flooding lately. Earlier this month we had a look at the flooding of the Mississippi River, which took place in January this year. There are now a number of images captured in mid March that show flooding in Texas and Louisiana.

The Sabine River floods Deweyville, Texas.

The Red River in flood near Coushatta, Louisiana.

The Ouachita River, Louisiana.

There are also satellite images of Austin and Houston, Texas, captured on March 12th. We are not sure if they relate to flooding and have not yet identified anything unusual in the images.

There has been further flooding in April, but there is not yet any relevant imagery.

For the locations featured in this post download this KML file. We have included in the KML some data from the USGS showing the epicentre of the quake and the area of impact.

What’s that image: Earthquake, train crash and floods

April 13, 2016

Yesterday we had a look at some of the interesting imagery of the United States from the latest Google Earth imagery update. Today we are having a look around the rest of the world to see what we can find. Most of the locations were found with the assistance of DigitalGlobe’s ‘first look’ map.

On February 6, 2016, an earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck the south-west of Taiwan causing widespread damage and 117 deaths. Most of the deaths were caused by the collapse of a 17 floor apartment block in Tainan. Read more about it and see drone footage in this article. One possible cause of the collapse is poor construction, including, believe it or not, the use of cooking oil cans as a building material.

Before and after: collapsed apartment block in Tainan, Taiwan.

On 9 February 2016 there was a head on collision between two trains near the town of Bad Aibling, Germany. The photo below was captured three days later. Based on the Wikipedia page, it would appear that both trains involved were blue and the emergency engineering train for carrying out repairs is red, so what we can see on the tracks may be one or more emergency engineering trains. The crash may have been caused by a controller making an error because he was distracted by a game he was playing on his phone.

Train crash, Bad Aibling, Germany.

In December, 2015, we showed you some imagery of flooding in southern India via the Google Crisis response page. Now, that imagery and more has made its way into Google Earth. Read more about the floods on Wikipedia.

Flooding in Chennai, India. The area has a lot of swamps and lakes so be sure to compare with historical imagery before concluding that a body of water is part of the flood.

January saw heavy flooding in Tanzania and there is some related imagery in Google Earth. We didn’t find any serious flooding in built up areas, but we did find these flooded fields:

It is a river delta onto Lake Sulunga, so its flooding may be a common event.

We also came across Benjamin Constant, Brazil. At first sight it looks like a disastrous flood, but closer inspection reveals raised walkways between the houses, indicating that flooding is common and preparations have been made. A look through the historical imagery also shows that the flood waters are not higher than previous events.

Benjamin Constant, Brazil.

For the locations featured in this post, download this KML file. We have also included some other locations where imagery has clearly been captured for a specific event, but we were unable to find anything related to the event in the imagery.

What’s that image: United States

April 12, 2016

Yesterday we had a look at the most recent Google Earth imagery update. Today, we are having a look at what interesting sights can be found in the imagery, specifically in the United States. In a later post we will look at other parts of the world.

We have looked at the work of Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada before. Another of his works is now visible in the Google Earth imagery of San Antonio, Texas. It is called Nyssa, after its subject, Nyssa Gomez. Read more about it on the artists website.

Nyssa, by Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada.

We have already had a look at Super Bowl 50 in Google Earth. The Super Bowl title was won by the Denver Broncos, and when they got back home to Denver, Colorado, they held a victory parade. See ground level photos of the event here.

Crowds gathered for the Denver Broncos victory parade.

Heavy rains in December 2015 resulted in the flooding of the Mississippi River. We mentioned it at the time and had a look at previous Mississippi flooding events. Now, there is quite a lot of imagery in Google Earth relating to the event. St. Louis, Missouri, is at the confluence of three large rivers, the Mississippi River, the Missouri River and the Illinois River. There are a number of satellite images of the region captured in early January showing the flooding. There was more flooding in March but no related imagery as yet.

Flooding in St. Louis, Missouri.

There are also images further down the Mississippi as the water travelled south.

Flooding of the Mississippi near Osceola, Arkansas.

Flooding of the Mississippi near Arkansas City, Arkansas.

There was a Tornado in Dallas, Texas, which was part of the same group of Tornadoes as the one we featured yesterday. See some aerial images here. There is an image of Dallas in Google Earth that was captured a few days after the Tornado in response to the event. But, based on this map we believe the main path of the tornado started just north of the image. There is also this funny story relating to the event. A demolition company charged with demolishing one of the houses damaged by the tornado relied a bit too heavily on Google Maps and demolished the wrong house!

For all the locations featured in this post, including outlines for some of the relevant imagery, download this KML file. Remember that much of the imagery can only be seen by switching to ‘historical imagery’.

What’s that Image: Fire, Flood and Mud

March 21, 2016

Today we are having a look at some of the interesting imagery we have been able to find in the latest Google Earth imagery update.

In November last year there were a number of bush fires in South Australia. The imagery below shows the burn marks of one of those fires.

Drag the divider left and right to see the before and after images of a fire in South Australia.

December last year saw major floods in South America, including Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. One of the cities that were hit hard was Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. They had already experienced floods in July, 2015, which we have looked at before. Judging by the imagery available, the December flooding was worse.

Flooding in Asunción, Paraguay

Be sure to explore the imagery in Google Earth. By January 20th, 2016 the flood waters appeared to have subsided a little, but the area above was still flooded. There is a problem with the imagery for the area, with Google Earth sometimes switching to the January image as you zoom in, even if the time slider is set to a December date.

On November 5th, 2015, Bento Rodrigues, Brazil, was inundated in toxic sludge after a mine dam burst. We had a look at the imagery of the site in January. At the time we were able to follow the mud a little way downstream. More imagery further downstream has now been released, including some images of the mud entering the Atlantic Ocean.

To see the locations featured in this post in Google Earth download this KML file.

Interesting imagery from 2015 that we missed

January 11, 2016

Last week we looked at the Bento Rodrigues mine disaster. Today we are looking at a number of other sights to be seen in the satellite imagery from 2015. We found most of the locations with the help of DigitalGlobe’s First Look map.

Tropical Cyclone Chapala struck Yemen on November 3rd, 2015. Google Earth has some images from a couple of weeks later, which show a number of bridges and roads washed away.

A washed out bridge in Yemen.

Tocopilla, Chile experienced landslides and flooding in August, 2015. The imagery is not very good quality but we were able to find the location below where some houses have been washed away.

The Copiapo River in Atacama, Chile, flooded in March. As you can see in this article it was more mud than water.

The slightly darker browns indicate the extent of the flooding.

Two volcanoes erupted in Chile: Villarrica (seen below) erupted on March 3rd, 2015 and Calbuco on April 22, 2015. Calbuco has a black and white image in Google Earth showing a plume of smoke from its summit

Villarrica before and after the eruption.

Be sure to download this KML file and explore the above sights in Google Earth, as well as a number of others including:

A chemical spill in the Animas River from the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado.
Chambers Bay Golf Course while the US Open for 2015 was in progress (not a lot can be seen).
Some flooded houses in South Carolina from the flooding that occurred in October.
The 2015 Dubai Air Show.
An oil spill from an attack on an oil field in Libya in February.