Drones to the rescue – Trinidad Guardian

Plumes of grey ash mixed with gas ex­plode vi­o­lent­ly over the La Soufrière vol­cano in St Vin­cent, spread­ing far across the sky. In Ice­land, the mas­sive Mount Fagradals­f­jall vol­cano spouts red-hot la­va high in­to the air and over the sides of its crater, trans­form­ing the land­scape with omi­nous or­ange-black ooze. Drones have been hov­er­ing near­by, bear­ing wit­ness to these re­cent events and bring­ing vi­tal in­for­ma­tion back to dis­as­ter man­age­ment au­thor­i­ties and the pub­lic.

Drone tech­nol­o­gy is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant in the way hu­mans op­er­ate and re­spond to crises. Its life-sav­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties are end­less, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing COVID.

Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Rec­trix Drone Ser­vices Ltd, An­tho­ny Vieira, in a re­cent in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian, said, “My take is risk a drone, not a he­li­copter or a life. Af­ter hur­ri­canes and oth­er…