Monday, November 11, 2013

Haiyan, part 2

Interestingly, the majority of Tacloban is now mapped, as well as many other areas.

Someone's run stats245 volunteers who created nearly 440,000 map changes within the aforementioned extent. It's now up to 600,000+

More exciting than that, however, is the sheer number of emergency responders using OpenStreetMap data.
For example; since we mapped just about every building in Tacloban, satellites have been redirected to capture updated images.
The two are being explicitly combined. You can see a really detailed map of what survived, and what did not:

http://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/ems-product-component/EMSR058_02TACLOBANCITY_GRADING_DETAIL03/1

You can also see a mashup of geotagged photos from reports on the ground, backed up by OSM tiles:
https://haiyan.crowdmap.com/

While we can't change the fact thousands have died, there's a quite reasonable hope that accurate, up to date geospatial information can change the situation; enabling people to prioritise with data driving decisions in both the immediate and longer term recovery efforts.

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