UNOSAT and the Space Charter data helped significantly in
Pacific region January 2013 - Cyclone Evan is a powerful
category 4 storm that tore through the Pacific in December 2012
and was initially compared to the dramatic storm that hit the
same region in 1993. On 15 December, as the cyclone unleashed
its power provoking death and destruction, UNOSAT was activated
by OCHA with a request to deliver rapid mapping over Samoa, and
then again on 18 December 2012 for Fiji. While Samoa had little
forewarning of Evan’s arrival, Fiji benefitted from an early
alert and could prepare for the storm landfall, which caused
extensive destruction but no casualties. When OCHA Regional
Office in Bangkok contacted UNOSAT to request satellite based
rapid mapping, experts in Geneva decided that the situation
required also the triggering of the International Charter Space
and Major Disasters. UNOSAT triggers this important
international mechanism as a matter of routine to fulfil its
mission to help UN humanitarian agencies with sa