The category 4 hurricane hit southwest Haiti on 4 October 2016. It was the strongest hurricane in Haiti since 1964 with wind velocity of over 235 km/h. The hurricane left hundreds dead and thousands of homes destroyed.
Communication services offered by emergency.lu provide connectivity to humanitarian responders in Haiti and are being deployed in close collaboration with the World Food Program (WFP) as global lead of the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC). One Rapid Deployment Kit is already on the ground and operational and a Regular Deployment Kit will be deployed shortly. The emergency.lu terminals use dedicated SES satellite capacity to re-establish vital communication links in order to improve the effectiveness of rapid response efforts. The connection is provided through inflatable antenna and a terminal and the capacity used is C band from SES-6.
“When a natural disaster such as the hurricane in Haiti strikes, infrastructure is badly damaged or destroyed completely. Communication networks are overloaded by people sourcing help and information or trying to contact relatives,” said Gerhard Bethscheider, Managing Director of SES Techcom Services. “Satellite is the only infrastructure which enables communication networks to be restored quickly, facilitating the roll-out of coordinated humanitarian assistance and aid.”
