During the night from Nov 15 and 16, 2007, tropical cyclone 'Sidr' swept over the the southwestern part of Bangladesh, leaving behind a trail of destruction. With wind speeds of up to 240 km/hr at the coast and up to 160 km/hr at the capital Dhaka, Sidr forced three million people to flee from their homes in 15 coastal districts of Bangladesh.

According to the UN OCHA reports, more than 3,000 people lost their lives in the cyclone, which caused a storm surge of up to five meters in heigth, flooding the towns of Patuakhali, Barguna and Jhalakathi. By the storm and the surge, estimated 300,000 homes were destroyed and 600,000 were partially damaged. Nearly 900,000 acres of crops were drestoyed.

UNOSAT has triggered the International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters' on behalf of the World Food Programme (WFP) which asked for support, demanding satellite based information on the impact of Sidr. The Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI) at DLR took over the project management in this Charter call and produces satellite image maps of the regions affected most by the event.

		ZKI satellite image maps: Impact of cyclone "Sidr" in Bangladesh November 21, 2007 - 19:47 UTC The Center of Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI) produces maps and analysis from satellite data, showing the impact of the storm surge.  More ...