Melina Facchin, edited by Julien Moreau
modified to
07:36, February 11, 2023
Five days after the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, we deplore at least 22,300 dead, according to the last provisional report of Friday, February 10. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted that “relief was not going as fast as hoped”. Rescue teams recently received unexpected help from cartographic engineers from the Regional Service for Image Processing and Remote Sensing (Sertit) in Illkirch, near Strasbourg. By analyzing satellite images, they are able to guide emergency services remotely.
Compare satellite images before and after the earthquake
In front of his double computer screen, Quentin Poterek, engineer at Sertit, carefully compared two satellite images. On the left: that of a Turkish city taken a few days before the earthquake. Right: A shot of the same place after the disaster.
“There, for example, we are at the level of a sports stadium”, explained this engineer from the Regional Image Processing and Remote Sensing Service, based in Illkirch (Bas-Rhin). “We see in the image after that different tents have been set up as well as refugee camps. And also elements which block the road and which could hinder relief efforts to reach these populations in situations of distress”, he added to the microphone of Europe 1 by adding a red dot to this place on the map.
“You have to be both precise and efficient”
All this data is sent to the relief teams on the ground, in Turkey and Syria, to help them in their operations, their research, their travels. “The challenge is to send relevant information as quickly as possible,” summarized Stephen Clandillon, director of Sertit, at the microphone of Europe 1.
“You have to be both precise, but above all efficient,” he added. Its teams have one mission: to be available all year round, at any time of day or night, to respond to emergencies. “Rapid mapping is a passion, it’s not just a job. We want to help”, concluded Stephen Clandillon. Sertit is thus able to work on events that occur anywhere in the world: earthquakes, therefore, but also floods, tsunamis, or even forest fires.