NASA-International Space Station

NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite with the higher Land Imager (ALI) instrument aboard took a picture centered on Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Friday, January 15, 2010, three days after the earthquake. The image on the left is the entire ALI image. The lower right image is a zoom-in of Port-au-Prince, while the upper right image is the same view taken in September 2008, one week after Hurricane Ike. Important features can be seen in both zoom images. Hurricane Ike unleashed torrential rains that caused severe flooding as depicted (upper right image) in the extreme discharge of sediment at the river delta, just north of downtown Port-au-Prince. The pier in the middle of the 2008 image collapsed during the earthquake and is not visible in the 2010 image (lower right image).