The damages caused by the earthquake that hit China on May 12 can now be seen on Google Earth, Google's downloadable mapping solution which provides satellite imagery of the entire world. The Mountain View-based company rolled out a new KML file for Google Earth, which shows the first scenes after the 7.9 magnitude earthquake assaulted China. According to Wei Luo, Technical Lead Manager, Google Earth, the search company has worked with several organizations in order to provide the photos, including Formosat2 and NSPO, the Taiwan national space agency that provided imagery with the affected regions.

"We now have post-earthquake imagery from our satellite providers; as of this morning, we have processed the first set of satellite imagery from Formosat2. You can see the imagery by downloading this KML into Google Earth. We will keep updating the KML as we receive and process more satellite imagery. Save the KML to your "My Places" to see the imagery updates. The first scenes captured the rescue effort to assess and repair dam damage near Dujiangyan City after the quake," the Google employee introduced the new photos.

If you want to download and access the earthquake photos, the procedure is pretty simple. All you need to do is to download this KML file and import it in Google Earth. To do that, open Google Earth, click on File and select Open. Go to the KML file and click Open. The Temporary Places box should show you a few new entries called "China Earthquake Imagery", which lets you zoom and browse among the said pictures.

Please note that the new images may slow down your computer or crash Google Earth. If you want to download the latest version of Google Earth, you can find it right here on Softpedia.