Interpretation: On March 11, 2011 an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.8 hits north-east Japan and triggered a tsunami.
The map shows the coastal area close to Sendai affected by the earthquake and tsunami. It indicates the flooded regions and debris zones as well as destroyed infrastructure. This change detection analysis is based on two TerraSAR-X radar images acquired on October 20, 2010 (pre-disaster) and March 12, 2011 (post-disaster), both at 20:43 UTC.
The differences between both images are colour-coded in red-green-blue. Flooded areas as of March 12 appear in blue. Tsunami-affected infrastructure is visible in cyan and debris deposited by the tsunami is shown in magenta. Unchanged water bodies as well as airport runways or major roads appear black in the radar image.
Location: Sendai, Japan
Map created by: Center for Satellite based Crisis Information (ZKI)
Last Update: March 14, 2011
Please Note: This map was reprojected for visualization in Google Earth.
For further information please visit the ZKI-Website

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