The deadly Venezuela earthquakes did more than topple buildings and leave communities reeling. They also changed the landscape itself, and scientists only realised the full extent of that transformation after looking at the disaster from space.
Using advanced space technology, researchers discovered that part of northern Venezuela's crust shifted by around 30 centimetres, nearly a foot, after two powerful earthquakes struck the region. It is the kind of movement no one could have spotted from the ground, yet satellites orbiting hundreds of kilometres above Earth detected it with remarkable precision.
