Seeking map data in response to Pakistan floods

(Cross-posted from the LatLong blog)

According to the UN, the recent floods in Pakistan have affected over 4 million individuals - and the human toll continues to grow. Disease is an ever-increasing risk as relief agencies rush to the aid of those who have been hurt or displaced.

Google’s Crisis Response team has provided satellite imagery and KML layers to assist relief efforts in past disasters, including the Haiti earthquake and recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In Pakistan, however, the cloud cover over the impacted areas has inhibited our ability to make this valuable content available. The Crisis Response team is looking to collect and aggregate imagery and user generated KML, or other map data, with the goal of making this content more accessible to both crisis responders and the general public. We’re hoping you can help. You can submit links to KML and map data via the following form. We’ll contact you if we are able to publish your content.




View BKTEF Relief Activity in a larger map

Further, we’ve released a version of our Person Finder tool in Urdu. We realize many of the victims of this disaster lack any connectivity to the Internet, but remain hopeful that tools like this can assist the diaspora and general disaster community in collecting and dispersing information on the well-being of those impacted.



Your data might help relief efforts; we appreciate you sharing it with the world.

Posted by Steve Hakusa, Software Engineer, Google Crisis Response Team

Permalink | Links to this post |