Google Earth Blog

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yemen

The War in Yemen

Most of the major war zones today are blanket censored in Google Earth, including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine. Israel isn’t completely censored, but due to a US law, has only low resolution imagery. Yemen, however, is not censored and we have had a look at bomb damage from the ongoing civil war a number of times in the past. Note that we have only been able to identify destroyed buildings and bomb craters. Other effects of war are not so easy to spot in satellite imagery unless you know where to look.


Bomb craters on the runway at Saada.

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Before and after of some damaged buildings in Saada.

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Before and after of Sana’a airport showing further damage since we last looked at it.

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Before and after of some damaged buildings in the port of Mocha.

The above are just a small selection of what can be seen. We found a lot more locations in a number of different cities, which we have marked in this KML file.

Bomb damage from the war in Yemen

There is an ongoing war in Yemen that started early last year. We have in the past had a look at the bomb damage at Sana’a airport in May 2015, and had another look in January this year.

Today we are having a look at some of the signs of bomb damage we have come across in other parts of the country.

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Destroyed building at the airport at Al Hudaydah, Yemen.

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A damaged football stadium in Aden, Yemen.

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Destroyed buildings at Ta’izz International Airport, Yemen.

Planes and a building destroyed at the airport in Aden, Yemen.


Destroyed buildings near Ta’izz, Yemen.


To find the above locations and a few more in Google Earth, download this KML file.

Google Earth Imagery Update mid-January 2016

Google Earth has received an imagery update recently, with the new imagery showing up in ‘historical imagery’ in the last couple of days. Until recently the most recent image was from November 30th, 2015, and now the most recent image is from January 11th, 2016.

Since the Google Earth API is still working, we can make a map of the approximate location of all imagery from December 2015 and January 2016. There is also newly added imagery dated before that, but we cannot so easily identify it.


Approximate location of imagery dated December 2015 to January 2016.

You can also view the approximate locations in Google Earth with this KML file. The actual imagery is usually quite a bit smaller than the displayed outline in the KML, so you need to switch between dates to find it. The easiest way to do this is with the imagery switcher tour from this post. Just download the KML file from that post and enter the dates ‘2015-12-01’ and ‘2016-01-31’ in the settings then click ‘update’ and move your view a little bit. You should then see a tour appear just below the settings icon in the ‘Places’ panel. Move the view to a location where the outlines show new imagery exists and run the tour. Set it to auto-repeat and you should easily pick out the new images.

One of the locations that has received new imagery is Sana’a in Yemen. We looked at bomb damage at the Sana’a airport back in May 2015. However the war is on-going and more damage can be seen in more recent images, including one from August 15th, 2015 and one from December 30th, 2015, with progressively more damage in each image.


White: older imagery, mostly circa May 2015. Blue: August 15th, 2015 imagery. Red: December 30th, 2015 imagery.


An example of one of the more recently destroyed buildings.

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

Please let us know in the comments if you find anything else of interest in the new imagery.

Interesting imagery from 2015 that we missed

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.

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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.

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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

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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.

Sana’a Airport bomb damage

Thank you to GEB reader AC for pointing us to the recently added imagery of Sana’a Airport in Yemen. The image comes from DigitalGlobe and was captured on March 27th, 2015.


Before and after images of buildings destroyed at Sana’a Airport, Yemen.

The conflict in Yemen is ongoing and the airport has been struck a number of times since March, including the bombing of the aircraft seen in this article. So check the location again in a month or two to see if new imagery gets added.

To see the buildings shown above and a couple of other noteworthy locations, download this KML file.