A magnitude-8.2 earthquake struck the southern coast of Mexico on 8 September Beijing time, killing dozens of people and injuring at least 200. The tremor was said to be the strongest in this country in the past century, resulting in mass evacuations along the country's Pacific coast.

On September 10, China’s National Integrated Earth Observation Data Sharing Platform has launched an emergency data aid program to help Mexico cope with disaster rescue by providing satellite data and data analysis of the region before-and after the quake. The first batch of data from three domestic satellites involves 79 scenes, a total of 14 GB data of the region. More data is scheduled to be collected from Chinese and international satellites, and Chinese engineers are working on huge data analysis for the disaster.

A data aid website targeting the earthquake has been opened at http://www.chinageoss.org/MexicoEarthQuake2017/index.html, where more satellite data and information analysis are updated and open to scientists and disaster reduction agencies worldwide.

The data aid program is launched by the National Remote Sensing Center (NRSC) under the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) as well as the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and backed by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), the World Data System (WDS), the International Digital Belt and Road Initiative (DBAR), and the Asia-Oceania Earth Observation System of Systems (AOGEOSS).

Key  observation area outlined on the satellite image.

Remote sensing image from Chinese satellites Jilin-1 shows the quake-hit town of Tonala.