My Google Map Blog

Although Google has neglected to update ‘historical imagery’ in Google Earth since early June, they have been adding fresh imagery, and when it is reasonably good quality, it goes into the default layer and we can see it. One such instance is a region in Jiangsu Province, China which was struck by a deadly tornado on June 23, 2016. According to Wikipedia, the tornado killed at least 99 people and injured 846 others (152 critically).

We found a number of articles showing various photos of the destruction, such as here, here, here and here. But, actually locating the event proved more difficult. We first mapped out the area that had new imagery and started searching through it for signs of damaged buildings, but with an area of nearly 4,000 square kilometres we were not successful. We did find a raised railway under construction, and a long trail of destroyed houses that turned out to be planned road construction. The articles either mention major nearby cities or small villages that aren’t marked on the map and couldn’t be found through search. Eventually we found mention of “Danping Village of Chenliang Township” and we were able to find Chenliang. From there, the path of destruction was easy to trace over a distance of around 30 km.

To see the path of the tornado in Google Earth download this KML file.

Although the latest imagery is not very high quality, near total destruction of houses all along the path of the tornado is clear, especially when comparing it with older imagery.

Some damaged factories.

A factory roof ripped to shreds.

See a higher resolution aerial image of this factory in this article

The post The Jiangsu tornado appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

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.

The post What’s that image: Earthquake and floods appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

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.

The post What’s that image: Earthquake, train crash and floods appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

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.

The post What’s that Image: Fire, Flood and Mud appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

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.

The post Interesting imagery from 2015 that we missed appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

With the recent release of the ‘Voyager Edition 2’ layers, including a map of recently added imagery, we can, as we have done for previous updates, have a look through the imagery to see if there is anything interesting. We forgot to mention in our previous post on the layer that the dates are all given as one day earlier than the dates displayed in Google Earth. We do not know which dates are correct.

A good place to start when checking to see whether imagery was captured for specific events is DigitalGlobe’s FirstLook map. Many of the locations on the map do feature relevant imagery in the latest Google Earth updates, but not all of the locations have anything interesting to see, or we were unable to find it. It must also be noted that the imagery is useful to first responders in disasters even when not much relating to the disaster is visible in the imagery. In fact, some of the imagery added is years old, but has been obtained to assist first responders as good maps or satellite imagery might not previously have been available.

Note that some of the locations featured are from imagery more recent than the Voyager Edition 2 map.

Flooding in Bulani, Pakistan.

Flooding in Rojhan, Pakistan.

The Hajj pilgrimage, Mecca, captured a few days before the official start of the Hajj.

Hellfest Open Air 2015 in Clisson, France.

Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany.

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

The post What’s that image, Voyager Edition 2 appeared first on Google Earth Blog.