Home >> News: October 24th, 2016 >> Story
Satnews Daily
October 24th, 2016

SES & Emergency.Lu Come To The Aid Of Hurricane Whipped Haiti


SES S.A. (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG), as one of the private partners in emergency.lu, is providing vital connectivity services following the devastating Hurricane Matthew in Haiti.   

The category 4 hurricane hit southwest Haiti on October 4th and was the strongest hurricane in Haiti since 1964 ,with wind velocities of more than 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 in addition, 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.

Emergency.lu is a public-private partnership between the Luxembourg government and three Luxembourg-based companies. These companies, SES Techcom Services, HITEC Luxembourg and Luxembourg Air Ambulance, design and operate the platform. Emergency.lu uses dedicated SES satellite capacity and ground infrastructure to re-establish communications networks in support of humanitarian relief operations.

Gerhard Bethscheider, the Managing Director of SES Techcom Services, stated that 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. Satellite is the only infrastructure which enables communication networks to be restored quickly, facilitating the roll-out of coordinated humanitarian assistance and aid.

www.ses.com

emergency.lu/