Nature reports “three days after the 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck Kashmir on 8 October, the Pakistan government appealed for high-resolution satellite images to help relief efforts. But, apparently to protect national security, Nature has learned that the government has since forced international agencies and relief organizations to remove these images from their websites”. The article says, “the UN, European Union (EU) and other international agencies have a general policy of making all such images publicly available. But last week photos of the quake zone disappeared from sites such as the UN’s ReliefWeb and satellite imaging site UNOSAT, and Reuters’ AlertNet. On others they became password-protected, such as on the EU’s disasters site. Images of the earthquake zone will now be distributed on a “need to know” basis to affiliated relief organizations, says a senior EU official.Although the main organizations can still access the data, the pulling of the images is “regrettable”, says the official, who asked not to be named. The images are useful to other local aid organizations, and to professionals worldwide who help out using the Internet, the official points out”.

Quake aid hampered by ban on web shots