SES Joins Typhoon Haiyan Relief Effort

Typhoon Haiyan Map. Photo: NOAA

[Via Satellite 11-11-13]  On Friday Typhoon Haiyan – one of the most powerful storms on record to make landfall – swept through six central islands in the Philippines. Following this disaster the emergency.lu communication service is being deployed in the Philippines. To that effect, three Rapid Deployment Kits from emergency.lu are being dispatched to provide vital connectivity for the ongoing humanitarian operations. The emergency.lu terminals use dedicated SES satellite capacity to re-establish vital communications links in order to improve the effectiveness of rapid response efforts.

The typhoon claimed thousands of casualties and wrecked up to 80 percent of structures in its path. Re-establishing communications links is vital to support the humanitarian relief efforts that are being deployed.

Emergency.lu can be deployed anywhere in the world within hours of a natural catastrophe or man-made crisis. The emergency.lu solution consists of satellite infrastructure and capacity, communication and coordination services, and satellite ground terminals as well as transportation of equipment to disaster areas all over the world.

Emergency.lu is a rapid communications solution for global disaster relief and humanitarian missions, developed and implemented as a public-private partnership by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg in collaboration with a consortium of Luxembourg companies and organizations: SES, TechCom, Hitec and Luxembourg Air Rescue. It is designed to help the humanitarian and civil protection community in the field to (re-) establish telecommunication services and support effective communication and coordination of first responders.