NASA satellites show the DANA disaster in Valencia from space

The first images were disseminated by the

The user also collected the southern area of ​​Valencia:

Other eyes on Earth

However, Landsat is not the only service that has its ‘eyes’ on Earth. There are several initiatives, such as Copernicus, the European Union’s Earth Observation Program that uses enormous amounts of global data from different satellites and ground, air and sea measurement systems that offer a constantly updated x-ray of the state of our planet. planet. Among its functions, the emergency service is key so that both administrations and the general public can access a global vision in the event of disasters such as the one that occurred in the Valencian Community and Castilla-La Mancha.

In fact, early on Wednesday morning, the service opened a global incident in which the first data delimited the eastern area that extends from Valencia to almost Denia, and then towards the center of the peninsula, up to the Ayora axis. -Requena-Utiel. Inside, the critical points were also indicated in three interior polygons in the areas of Horta Sur, Rivera Alta and Plana de Utiel. In a later update, the Letur area, in Albacete, was also added.

“On the one hand, radar images were taken, which have the advantage that they can capture information passing through the clouds,” Bruno Pérez Martín, Head of the Data Acquisition Area, General Subdirectorate of Cartography and Territorial Observation, General Directorate of the Institute, explains to ABC. National Geographic (IGN). “However, interpreting the images is more complicated.”

On the other hand, optical satellite images (basically, photographs of the terrain from space, like those collected by NASA) are more intuitive when it comes to understanding the disaster: the contrast between before and after allows us to show at a single glance the damage. “The problem here is that you have to wait until there are good weather conditions, without clouds, to take them,” says Pérez Martín. It is expected that in the next few hours the service will offer new spatial snapshots of the affected territories, showing not only the metropolitan area of ​​Valencia, but the rest of the municipalities affected by the floods.

“Until the Copernicus emergency service is deactivated for a specific emergency, there are always possibilities of capturing and processing more information,” says Pérez Marín, who recalls that the person responsible for activating this service in Spain is the National Emergency Center (CENEM) of the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies (Ministry of the Interior).

It is also expected that the satellites of the Sentinel program of the European Space Agency (ESA) will reveal new images of what has been the worst DANA of the last century in Spain and which has left nearly a hundred dead in the center and east of the peninsula.