Drone-based footage of Damage following the November 17th 2015 Lefkada Earthquake

Within less than 48 hrs following the Mw 6.4 earthquake that occurred near Lefkada island in Greece, on November 17th 2015, engineers from Geoengineer.org, the University of Michigan (USA) and the University of Patras (Greece) mobilized to quickly perform condition assessment at select sites that are of potential scientific interest. The team deployed an Unmanned Aerial Autonomous Vehicle (UAAV) that was able to collect footage of affected areas. The UAAV successfully by-passed roads that were closed by landslides and other damaged infrastructure that impacted accessibility.

The team launched the unprocessed video below immediately following UAAV deployment to make available data and footage that may prove valuable to first responders, engineers, rescue operators and damage assessors. The video includes footage from the port of Vasiliki (@0:00), the town of Vasiliki (@7:00), the damaged pier in Vasiliki port (@12:00), the Ponti village rock fall that killed one person (@16:00) and where the impressively long route of the rock fall was documented, and the extensive landsliding in Egremni beach (@24:00).

The video is not corrected for camera distortion and is not annotated at this stage, but aimed to distribute useful data in the most expedited manner and allow the scientific community and engineers to get a better view of what has happened.

This demonstration effort is part of the broader research objectives of a National Science Foundation titled “Post-Earthquake Aerial Reconnaissance of Geotechnical Engineering Systems.” More information can be found here: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1362975 . The lead Principal Investigator of the grant is Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos from the University of Michigan, and the leading collaborator in this specific reconnaissance effort from the University of Patras is Prof. George Athanasopoulos.

View the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR4WYNc_vEQ