[HOT] Eastern Afghanistan Earthquake Update

[Russell Deffner]

Dear HOT Community,

 

As we approach the second week of mapping in response to the Eastern
Afghanistan Earthquake
<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2015_Eastern_Afghanistan_Earthquake>  I
just wanted to give a quick update. As reported by UN OCHA in their latest
Flash Update
<http://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/afghanistan-flash-update-badakhshan
-earthquake-7-2-november-2015>  - assessing the damage continues, they
estimate 72% of districts affected have been assessed but the remaining
areas are difficult to access and there are reports of an area that has yet
to receive any humanitarian assistance. Looking at the distribution of food
and shelter supplies seems to show that too will be a long and difficult
challenge, with numbers only in the 10-20% range for those who have received
needed assistance (and more people will probably be added to those numbers
as the remainder of the assessments are made). All told, I think we were
correct in our initial size-up that we'd be looking at weeks to around a
month of needed response to make a significant impact to the response and
recovery from this tragedy. The coordination team has also been watching and
unfortunately have seen several large aftershocks (between 4 and 5 on the
richter scale), including two today (but quite a bit farther south in
Pakistan, but many near the epicenter of the largest 7.2 earthquake that
initiated our response); so far there hasn't been any reported additional
damage but shows us that this situation remains dynamic and may change at a
moment's notice.

 

The near-term objective remains to complete the high priority area defined
on project #1264 - the road network near the epicenter, and we are getting
somewhat close to complete on that area specifically; we may start looking
to expand that road network to other impacted areas. Unfortunately we have a
few realities to contend with for this response. First and foremost is that
as expected, the 'media spotlight' would fade pretty quickly, so I ask all
of you to not forget about the long-term needs of this region and keep
reminding your colleagues, etc. of the work remaining to be done. Second, is
we have quite the opposite situation compared to other responses in terms of
local OSM community. Where we had more established local connections for
responses such as Nepal; here we have only a few individuals who are doing
amazing work trying to reach out to their networks and build the case for
HOT/OSM usage in the region.

 

As many of you know, we are trying to do a better job ensuring that what HOT
does is beneficial not only to first responders and aid organizations, but
also the local OpenStreetMap-pers. Ultimately our efforts will boost the
available map data in the region, but we'd like to not leave a disconnected
spaghetti of roads but a relatively well placed and consistently tagged road
network from which to build from (rather than needing to clean up first).
Therefore I ask all experienced mappers to lend a hand with validation. And
of course, in the spirit of OSM, our hope is to help build-up the local OSM
community throughout the response; so I will only say one thing for now
regarding why no task(s) have been launched for Pakistan - that is because
(without getting into the details) it is basically illegal to contribute to
OSM if you are inside Pakistan, so it's a delicate subject that we are
trying to navigate in a way that doesn't risk individuals or HOT as an
organization's chance a being a catalyst to changing hearts and minds in the
government. 

 

Thank you again to everyone supporting HOT in any way larger or small,

=Russ

 

Russell Deffner

Activation Lead - Eastern Afghanistan Earthquake

Email: Russell.Deffner at hotosm.org

OSM/Skype: russdeffner

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)

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