AI and satellites help aid workers respond to Myanmar earthquake damage

Just after sunrise on Saturday, a satellite set its long-range camera on the city of Mandalay in Myanmar, not far from the epicenter of Friday's 7.7 magnitude earthquake that devastated the Southeast Asian country's second-largest city.

- By MATT O'BRIEN AP Technology Writer

The mission was to capture images that, combined with artificial intelligence technology, could help relief organizations quickly assess how many buildings had collapsed or were heavily damaged and where helpers most needed to go.

At first, the high-tech computer vision approach wasn't working.

"The biggest challenge in this particular case was the clouds," said Microsoft's chief data scientist, Juan Lavista Ferres. "There's no way to see through clouds with this technology."