Sahana FOSS Disaster Management System

The Sahana Free and Open Source Disaster Management System is emergency management and disaster preparedness software developed by the Sahana Software Foundation. Conceived during the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami to help manage the disaster, Sahana software was deployed by the Sri Lankan government's Center of National Operations (CNO), which included the Center of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA). Funding was provided by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). The project has grown, with deployments during other disasters such as the Asian Quake in Pakistan (2005), Southern Leyte Mudslide Disaster in Philippines (2006), the Jogjakarta Earthquake in Indonesia (2006) and the January 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Sahana currently has three projects: Eden, being developed in Python; Agasti, being developed in PHP; and the localization project, L10n.

The Sahana project aims to provide a set of modular, web-based disaster management applications.

Sahana also includes tools for synchronization between multiple instances, allowing for responders or district offices to capture data on victims in the field and exchange the data with the other field offices, headquarters or responders.

The tsunami that hit Sri Lanka on December 26, 2004, resulted in a massive outpouring of support for the relief of the nearly one million people that it affected. The Sahana was created for information management and collaboration in the aftermath.

They have been recognized by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), where it inspired a new FSF Award for Projects of Social Benefit, which is broader in coverage than humanitarian-FOSS and by the UNDP IOSN on their Humanitarian-FOSS Portal.