Earthquake damage detection using high-resolution satellite images

QuickBird observed the city of Zemmouri, Algeria, before and after the May 21, 2003 Algeria earthquake. Using the pre-event and post-event pan-sharpened images, visual inspection of building damage was carried out by the five authors of this paper individually. A total 1,399 buildings were classified into five damage levels of European Micro-seismic Scale. The results from the different interpreters were reasonably close for collapsed buildings but the difference becomes larger for smaller damage levels. The locations of refugee tents in the two post-event images were also identified. These observations indicate that high-resolution satellite images can provide quite useful information to emergency management after natural disasters.