Support for Post-conflict Reconstruction Activities – Palu Case Study
Training Resource Description
On September 28, 2018, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami struck Palu, a city of over 330,000 people on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The earthquake caused significant soil liquefaction in and around Palu. This resulted in mudslides in two locations, submerging many buildings and killing hundreds of people and leaving many more missing. The economic cost of the disaster, according to government estimates, reached $1.7 billion, owing largely to extensive damage to housing, water supply, irrigation, roads, bridges, airport, and port infrastructure.
ESA and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have been working closely together, in conjunction with local partners and agencies, to use satellite Earth Observation as a central tool in the reconstruction efforts and to support future planning. The primary goal of disseminating these information products is to assist authorities in better understanding the hazards associated with seismic activity, flooding, and landslides so that they can make more informed decisions when developing a redevelopment master plan.
EO4SD-DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) consortium member Planetek’s automatic cloud-based ‘Rheticus Displacement’ monitoring service produced ground-motion maps before and after the earthquake. These maps, which are accurate to a few millimetres and based on Copernicus Sentinel-1 radar data, are assisting authorities in determining the impact of the disaster on land surface stability.