Pléiades images of the Uttarakhand disaster

Update 17 June 2021: these images were used in a study published in Science by Shugar et al. (2021) A massive rock and ice avalanche caused the 2021 disaster at Chamoli, Indian Himalaya, doi:10.1126/science.abh4455.

The Indian Space Agency (ISRO) activated the International Charter « Space and Major Disasters » to image the area of the disater in Uttarakhand (excellent visualisation here). Thanks to CNES and Airbus DS, Pléiades images (resolution: 70 cm in panchromatic, 2.8 m in multispectral) were acquired today 09 Feb 2021, two days after the event. These images show the detachment area with a clear rupture line of 550 m on the north face of Ronti.

This is a comparison with the latest Sentinel-2 image, before the flood.

 

Preliminary work by many scientists suggests that a rockslope failure released a mixture of rock and ice which created a potent flood in the valley of the Rishiganga River.

UPDATE 10 Feb 2021. A Pléiades stereo pair has been acquired (B/H = 0.12) which allowed us to generate a high resolution 3D model of the area.

Update 11 Feb 2021

Two elevation difference maps were computed by Etienne. A first one by differencing the above Pléiades DEM with the Copernicus 30 m resolution DEM

Then, D. Shean (Univ Washington) computed a pre-event DEM from WorldView-1 images which allowed a finer analysis. The estimated detached volume is 25 millions cubic meters.

Authors Etienne Berthier (CNRS/LEGOS) and Simon Gascoin (CNRS/CESBIO)

Acknowledgements Work carried out with the support of CNES, the International Charter for Major Spaces and Disasters and the DINAMIS program.

Plus d'actualités

Evolution de l’altitude de la ligne de neige au cours des 41 dernières années dans le bassin versant du Vénéon (Oisans)

Pour contribuer à caractériser les conditions hydrométéorologiques lors de la crue torrentielle qui a frappé la Bérarde en juin, j’ai analysé une nouvelle série de cartes d’enneigement qui couvre la période 1984-2024 [1]. Grâce à la profondeur temporelle de cette série, on constate que l’altitude de la ligne de neige dans le bassin versant du […]

Is Antarctica greening?

In a recent study, Roland and Bartlett et al. (2024) showed that the Antarctic Peninsula is « greening », i.e. the area covered by vegetation is growing. This article published in Nature Geoscience was featured in many media outlets. The authors drew this conclusion from the analysis of 35 years of Landsat images. More specifically, they computed […]

Crue du Vénéon : que nous apprennent les images satellites ?

Le 21 juin 2024, la crue torrentielle du Vénéon et de son affluent le torrent des Étançons a dévasté le hameau de la Bérarde dans le massif des Écrins. Cette crue a résulté des fortes pluies et de la fonte de la neige, et a peut-être été aggravée par la vidange d’un petit lac supra-glaciaire. […]

Rechercher