Earthquake in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

After the Tsunami of December, 2004, Indonesia was hit by another severe natural disaster. In the morning of Mai 27, 2006, an earthquake of magnitude 6.2 (USGS) led to heavy destructions in the region of Yogyakarta on the Indonesian island of Java. More than 5,000 bodies were found and 20,000 injuries were counted (May 30, 2006). Some 200,000 people lost their homes. 4,000 buildings collapsed, 3,000 of them in the village of Bantul south of the city Yogyakarta alone. The region of the earthquake was situated only a few kilometers south of the vulcano Mt. Merapi which had shown increased activity for several weeks and has augmented the amount of its ash spills again after the earthquake. In order to support the relief agencies in the field, the German Foreign Ministry had triggered the International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters'. The Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI) of DLR took over the project management in this activation and produced maps based on high-resolution satellite images in the context of the European GMES service element RESPOND.