Haiti & OSM
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The Haitian earthquake on 12th January 2010 was catastrophic in scale, with an estimated 230,000 deaths and 1,000,000 people made homeless. The Haitian Government estimated that 250,000 residential and 30,000 non-residential buildings had either collapsed or been severely damaged. The ensuing response from the international community included humanitarian aid, military support personnel, medical teams and engineers. However, the scale of the disaster had caused unprecedented disruption to communication and transport systems – not to mention electrical and water infrastructures – severely hampering both rescue and aid efforts. Within hours of the initial earthquake, satellite and aerial imagery passes of the area had been made to improve geographical knowledge in a bid to assist the wider relief effort. In the following days the data was released to the public, prompting a surge in tracing and analysis from the OpenStreetMap (OSM) community. The sheer speed of the response enabled OSM to provide direct support to aid workers on the ground. Large additions to the map are made with many roads (green primary, red secondary) added including the blue glowing refugee camps that begin to emerge. The animation was produced by ITO World, with support from Ideas In Transit.  |
