High resolution satellite images are received of flooded areas in Amur Region: the city of Blagoveshchensk, Zarechniy and Volodymyrivka and Uralovka villages of Blagoveshchensk District. The images acquired from the RADARSAT-2 satellite were received by “UniScan” ground station in Samara State Aerospace University by the request of the ScanEx Research and Development Center and operationally transfered to the Center specialists for further processing and analysis. Further on, spatial data and information on the scales of the identified disaster are submitted to National Center for Crisis Management of the Russian Emergencies Ministry.
– Satellite images received in near real-time served as a source of impartial information to assess the situation within the emergency area. Satellite images, together with the aerial survey data, field reports, water level stations’ data were used by the mobile Government Commission, which worked on 8 August in the Amur Region under the leadership of the Russian EMERCOM Minister Vladimir Puchkov, – said Andrey Kudinov, Acting Head of Space monitoring Department – Deputy Chief of the Russian National Center for Crisis Management of the Ministry of Emergency.
Satellite images confirmed the presence of flooding in the areas of emergency and enabled to give a detailed assessment of the extent of the damage. Based on the RADSARSAT-2 satellite images received on August 7, specialists of ScanEx RDC calculated the area of flooding (including riverside zone) in Vladimirovka village – 1.2 sq.km and in Uralovka village – 0.2 sq.km.
Satellite monitoring of the floods in the Amur Region will continue.
Flood situation in the Far East is aggravated by heavy rains in the summer of 2013. For two weeks already the Amur Region has been living in the state of emergency due to floods in several areas. According to the MOE data, 594 houses and 745 garden plots are flooded, with 16 sections of local roads and three road bridges. About 2000 thousand people were evacuated, including 940 children. According to experts, this flood could be the most powerful in the past century.
