Due to heavy snow fall in winter 2005-2006, two building catastrophes happened in Katowice (Poland) and Moscow (Russia) killing and injuring dozens of people. Roof collapses, caused by heavy snow and ice accumulation were the direct causes, but it was questioned whether other circumstances such as construction stability would play an additional triggering role. Moreover, both buildings were located on unstable areas affected by underground coal mining (Katowice) and karst and suffusion phenomena (Moscow). We performed a stability assessment of the buildings, prior to the collapse, using Persistent Scatterer techniques on time series of SAR data. The main challenge of this study is the identification of a few representative coherent scatterers on individual buildings. The main conclusion of this analysis of ERS1/2 and ENVISAT data is that we found no significant indication of instability before the catastrophes.

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Recently, two CAT-1 projects have been initiated related to Granada Basin area (Betic Cordillera, Southern Spain), aimed at the detection of deformation in the region applying time series InSAR methodology. Due to the outstanding availability of ERS-1/2 and Envisat acquisitions, a time span of more than 12 years is covered and time series can be produced, enabling us to assess the feasibility of monitoring deformation with millimetre precision. The ultimate goal of these projects is the quantification of displacements and determination of their mean directions, relating them to dynamic changes and stress accumulation in order to identify potential seismic hazard locations. For the moment, not all available scenes have been received, so a preliminary data processing has been carried out at the Padul fault area. In this paper, we present a status report of both projects.@en

The surface ruptures caused by the 26 December 2003 earthquake which affected the city of Bam (Kerman province, southeast Iran) have already been mapped using interferometric coherence images from Envisat SAR images. The clearly visible traces of these structures in the coherence images allow to prove that the Bam earthquake has been caused by the displacement along a previously unknown fault. Besides the coherence, the SAR interferograms of the ascending and descending orbits present a very complex deformation pattern especially north of Bam. Similar patterns have been observed in two independent datasets (ascending and descending) avoiding misinterpretation as atmospheric errors. Interferograms and derived deformation maps allow to interpret such structures in detail as a system of possible fractures and small faults accompanying the main rupture. Geocoded interferograms allow to trace in detail the direction of these structures, while deformation maps of ascending and descending passes allow the interpretation of their relative movement. The obtained pattern together with the structures mapped from the coherence images gives an opportunity to reconstruct the kinematics of the entire "Bam structure" and find its relation to the kinematics of the major intra-continental strike-slip system of the Gowk fault. @en