REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KATHMANDU -- For weeks after Nepal's worst earthquake in 80 years, the skies above the Himalayan nation vibrated with military helicopters ferrying relief, airplanes bringing in aid workers, and drones.
When the 7.8 magnitude quake struck Nepal in April 2015, flattening homes and killing thousands of people, authorities scrambled to assess the damage and deliver relief to survivors.
Within hours foreign governments and aid agencies had heeded the overwhelmed Nepali government's appeal for assistance, sending everything from medical equipment to plastic sheets, food rations and clean water.
They also sent drones.
Long associated with conflicts where they have been deployed in air strikes and for intelligence or surveillance purposes, the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is rising in other areas, including response to natural disasters.
In Nepal, several agencies used them for search and rescue missions and to map out toppled monuments, ruined heritage sites and devastated homes.
The International Organization for Migration has been using drones since 2012 to capture the damage in Haiti after its 2010earthquake.
Drones were again used in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 as a tool for reconstruction efforts, and are now being deployed there to find out where farmland is most at risk from natural disasters, and to assess their impact.
In 2014, Medecins Sans Frontieres piloted the use of drones to deliver vaccines and medicine in Papua New Guinea, while the World Health Organization trialled a similar programme in Bhutan, researchers said.
"The beauty of drones is that they are cheap, easy to use and people can be taught to use them quickly, so there is no need for foreign aid workers to parachute into disaster zones," said Faine Greenwood, research assistant on drones at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.
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