Heavy rains in eastern Algeria over the past few weeks have led to flooding that has killed more than 30 people and left hundreds homeless. This false-color image of Algeria (bottom) was taken on August 29, 2002, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), flying aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.
Most of the deaths were due to flash floods in the towns along the Algerian-Tunisian border, which runs down the center of the image. These floodwaters have made their way to the low-lying, desert wetlands of Algeria, clearly visible in the MODIS image (bottom). Although water levels have gone down over the past two days in these oasis-like formations, they normally cannot be seen at all in MODIS imagery (top, acquired on August 6, 2002).
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Image by Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA-GSFC
