Disaster · Before and after

Antakya old town, Turkey (earthquake)

Two dated satellite photos of the same spot, 27 Sep 2021 and 4 Apr 2023. Open them in GeoWhisperer to swipe between them, check the pair and read what changed.

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What changed

Major change. Widespread destruction and clearing of buildings occurred across the entire area between September 2021 and April 2023. Multi-story building blocks west of the river have been largely reduced to rubble or cleared bare ground.

• Square A1high confidence
  Multi-story buildings removed and replaced by cleared ground
  Before: Dense multi-story apartment buildings with grey and white roofs After: Most buildings are gone, leaving open light brown ground and scattered rubble
• Square A2high confidence
  Buildings west of main street cleared
  Before: Row of multi-story buildings along the road west of the river After: Buildings west of the road are gone, leaving large open cleared lots
• Square B1high confidence
  Multiple apartment blocks gone
  Before: Several dense multi-story apartment buildings After: Apartment blocks are gone, replaced by light bare ground and debris heaps
• Square B2high confidence
  Buildings cleared and small temporary shelters erected
  Before: Buildings surrounding the roundabout west of the river bridge After: Buildings cleared into rubble lots, with small blue tents or containers visible near the roundabout
• Square B3high confidence
  Collapsed roofs and widespread rubble heaps
  Before: Dense neighborhood of traditional red-tiled roof buildings After: Many roofs collapsed with extensive grey rubble visible between remaining walls
• Square C1high confidence
  Buildings in northern section gone
  Before: Multi-story apartment structures north of the park After: Buildings replaced by cleared brown ground
• Square C2high confidence
  Buildings along riverbank reduced to debris
  Before: Continuous row of buildings east of the river After: Multiple collapsed structures visible as heaps of light grey rubble

The square is split into nine numbered squares, A1 to C3. The changes above sit in A1, A2, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2.

Differences that are not changes

Things that look different in the two photos but do not mean anything changed on the ground:

• Square B2: River water changed color from dark green to murky olive. Not counted: other: explain.
• Square C1: Trees in the park appear slightly darker green. Not counted: season.

The photos

The movie

GeoWhisperer turns this comparison into a short film with numbered markers: watch or download the MP4.

Check it yourself

• This spot on OpenStreetMap
• Sentinel Hub EO Browser, free satellite archive
• Every dated photo of this spot in the Esri archive

The reading above was produced by GeoWhisperer from these two photos and nothing else. It describes what is visible, never why it happened or who did it, and it can miss things or misread shadows, season and viewing angle. Check every line by eye with the slider in the tool. Another OSINT tool by Henk van Ess, www.digitaldigging.org.

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