United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs

29 August 2008 - Heavy flooding in southeast Nepal and the Bihar state of India occurred after the Kosi river broke its banks. The river inundated a dry river bed and flooded scores of villages in both countries. Over 3 million people were displaced in India, and more than 70,000 flood victims needed assistance in Nepal.
In order to provide emergency services up-to-date geographic information regarding the extent of the flooded area and the further development of the river's course, UN agencies requested UNOOSA to activate the International Charter "Space and Major Disasters", a mechanism which provides for the rapid acquisition of satellite imagery over disaster areas. By utilizing radar satellites which could "see through" the monsoon cloud cover, mapping agencies obtained a true picture of the flooded area. Maps from the satellite data are being collected at the International Charter webpage. An early result from DLR/ZKI can also be found here. (Photo credit: ©IFRC/Nepal, NIP)

15 August 2008 - On 26 July 2008, seismic activity at the Soufriere Hills Volcano started to increase in Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. This volcano has been intermittently active for 13 years. On 28 July, an explosion took place on the west side of a large lava dome at the summit. The dome partially collapsed, and there was a strong possibility that the explosion had caused instability in the rest of the dome, which could cause further collapses and endanger inhabited areas of the island. Staff at the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) were not able to make any assessment of the stability of the dome due to persistent clouds obscuring the volcano. Within this backdrop, Roderick Stewart, Acting Director of MVO, requested assistance from the scientific community, including his fellow participants at the recent UN-SPIDER workshop for the Caribbean region, in order to obtain satellite imagery of the Volcano.
The assistance obtained led to several satellite imagery acquisitions and the activation of the International Charter "Space and Major Disasters." The imagery data allowed MVO to determine that the lava dome had not been destabilized by the explosion. As a result, the Government of Montserrat was able to save valuable resources by cancelling an evacuation that had been ordered as a precautionary measure. Reviewing the chain of events that led to this positive outcome, Mr. Stewart remarked, "I would particularly like to thank the forces that got me to the UN-SPIDER meeting in Barbados. None of this would have happened if I hadn't been there."

28 July 2008 - UNOOSA/UN-SPIDER received thanks from the China National Committee for Disaster Reduction (CNCDR) and the National Disaster Reduction Centre of China (NDRCC) for providing support to China during the recent catastrophic Wenchuan Earthquake which occurred on 12 May 2008. The National Disaster Reduction Centre of China (NDRCC) took the lead in using space-based information to support the emergency relief efforts. The UN-SPIDER Support Team, a group of experts made available by NDRCC for the upcoming UN-SPIDER Beijing Office, coordinated the work of nearly 40 analysts, mostly volunteers (see picture Mr. Liu San Chao, Ms. Li Suju, Head of the UN-SPIDER Support Team, and Mr. Wei Wu, 7 June 2008). The thank-you letter specifically recognised that the support received from UN-SPIDER helped China "coordinate with international agencies to provide to us satellite images of the earthquake areas" and that this was "very helpful in our timely acquirement of first hand information for the disaster assessment." In particular they thanked UN-SPIDER Programme Coordinator, David Stevens, "who came to Beijing and provided useful suggestions about our work". The support received "played a unique role in assisting our estimation about the magnitude of damage and greatly empowered the rescue and relief efforts to reduce the casualties and damage. While expressing our gratitude to your institution for your timely and most needed support, I wish that we continue our close cooperation in application for space technologies in disaster prevention and reduction for benefiting the people." China has been a major supporter of UN-SPIDER.