Argentinian floods

At the beginning of March, the port city of Bahía Blanca in Argentina was hit by torrential rains with over 400 mm falling in just a few hours – roughly equivalent to a year’s worth of rainfall for the city.

At least 16 people were killed and over 1000 had to be evacuated from their homes. Roads and bridges were destroyed, buildings flooded, and some parts of the city were left without electricity.

These false-colour images were captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 9 February (before the floods) and on 11 March (after the floods). Flooded areas are visible in the image on the right in shades of brown.

The International Charter Space and Major Disasters has also been activated to respond to the disaster. The service takes advantage of observations from several satellites and provide on-demand mapping to help civil protection authorities and the international humanitarian community in the face of major emergencies.