Earthquake Damage Assessment in Jalalabad City via Satellite Imagery

UNOSAT identified 12 damaged and 69 potentially damaged buildings in Jalalabad City, Afghanistan, following an August 31, 2025 earthquake. The analysis is based on a Pleiades very high-resolution satellite image acquired on September 2, 2025. This preliminary damage assessment has not been validated in the field.

Use Cases

• Train a computer vision model to classify satellite imagery into 'damaged' and 'potentially damaged' building categories for rapid disaster response.
• Analyze the spatial distribution of damaged and potentially damaged buildings to prioritize ground verification and humanitarian aid delivery.
• Use the geospatial data in SHP or GEODATABASE format to overlay damage assessments with other infrastructure or population density maps.

Strengths

• Analysis is based on Pleiades very high-resolution satellite imagery, providing detailed visual data.
• Provides specific counts of 12 damaged and 69 potentially damaged buildings for a defined geographic area.
• Data is provided in standard geospatial formats (SHP, GEODATABASE) suitable for GIS analysis.

Limitations

• The analysis is preliminary and explicitly noted as not validated by ground verification.
• The dataset scope is limited to Jalalabad City and surrounding area, not the full earthquake-affected region.
• The exact number of rows/features and specific attribute columns are not detailed in the input.

Provenance

Source

United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT).

Collection Method

Damage detection performed using Pleiades very high-resolution satellite imagery.

Time Range

Satellite image acquired on September 2, 2025, assessing damage from an earthquake on August 31, 2025.

Freshness

Satellite image was acquired on September 2, 2025; dataset metadata was last updated on March 24, 2026.

Geography

Jalalabad City and surrounding area, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.