This last weekend Tropical Cyclone Pam struck the Islands of Vanuatu in the South Pacific causing widespread devastation.
We were asked by a GEB reader whether the satellite imaging companies would be collecting and publishing satellite imagery of Vanuatu. DigitalGlobe has a subscription service called ‘First Look’ that provides access to timely satellite imagery for disaster zones. It is targeted at crisis response organizations. It does not provide the imagery directly to the public. DigitalGlobe does, however, have a publicly available map showing what imagery is made available via the First Look service and it appears that satellites World View 1 and World View 2 have captured a number of images over the last few days of the island of Efate where the capital of Vanuatu lies.
In addition, the New Zealand Herald has published sections of a few of the images showing comparisons of before and after imagery.