While Natural disasters still taking many lives, one may ask what assistance space(and air) related technologies could give. Could we expect imoproved planning, mapping and better odds of finding persons (under eartquakes, floods, etcetera)?
Living creatures, including humans make a lot of possible signals. Like sounds (at least heartbeat), body odours, body temperature, even respiration. Detectors on or near ground level, combined with aircraft or sattelite communication could perhaps improve rescue operations a lot?

It seems that satellite imaging is already used in natural disaster assessment, though I'm not sure how much it helps in assisting except for giving pretty news images...

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NASA NOAA SARSAT, if you've got the device on or near you.

International COSPAS_SARSAT: International Satellite System For Search and Rescue

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There's a whole host of space tech used in natural disasters. Satellite images can quickly give information about the size of the damage (as well as alerting folks that something like a hurricane or cyclone is headed their way). Satellite phones are used to communicate with the outside world by aid workers in disaster areas. These can transmit not only voice, but data, as well. GPS devices help rescue workers find their way, as well as enabling them to give accurate coordinates to others delivering supplies, etc.

That's the short list, and I'm not even going to attempt to list all the things terrestrial in nature (like digital cameras) which owe their existance to technology developed for and from the space program.

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