Jul 2024 · Kerala
Wayanad landslides
400+ deaths in the Western Ghats. Roads cut, villages buried. Rescuers could not locate survivors under debris — no hyper-local alert or through-wall sensing.
Recent disasters expose a deadly gap
South Asia faces earthquakes, landslides, and floods every year — yet when disaster strikes, responders still cannot answer three basic questions: where are the survivors, how many are there, and are they still alive?
Why rescue teams lose precious hours
- No location — buried victims cannot call for help; rubble blocks GPS and phone signals.
- No count — officials do not know how many people were in a building or village when it collapsed.
- No right device — search dogs, microphones, and thermal cameras fail in mud, rain, and deep debris.
- No local warning — national bulletins arrive too late; villages lack ward-level evacuation routes.
AURA closes this gap with affordable ESP32 sensing: early alerts before disaster, then WiFi CSI survivor detection after networks fail.
Oct 2023 · Sikkim
Glacial lake outburst flood
Teesta River flash flood killed 40+. Remote valleys had no last-mile warning — families did not know where to go or who was still trapped upstream.
Jan 2023 · Uttarakhand
Joshimath land subsidence
600+ buildings cracked. Slow-motion disaster needed continuous monitoring of how many residents remained inside unsafe structures.
Dec 2023 · Tamil Nadu
Chennai & coastal floods
Cyclone Michaung submerged streets. No ward-level safe-house map — people did not know which shelters had space or how many neighbours were stranded.
Nov 2023 · Nepal
Jajarkot earthquake
Magnitude 6.4 struck western Nepal — 150+ killed. Remote hills had no village-level warning and no device to find people under collapsed stone homes.
Disaster photos via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA / public domain).