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ARCHIVED - Natural disaster text warning service to be rolled out in Spain
Authorities in Spain will be able to warn people of emergency situations via text message
Spain is no stranger to natural disasters, and the repercussions of the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano in La Palma in September are still being felt, with some 7,000 people evacuated and hundreds of homes and businesses lost to the lava. A recent report confirmed that the DANA of 2019, which decimated much of the Region of Murcia and Alicante, was the most expensive natural catastrophe in Spanish history, and the government has been working on a system that it hopes will reduce the devastation if a similar event occurs in the future.
Amazingly, the Canary Island’s volcanic eruption resulted in only one death, and the authorities credit the relatively favourable outcome to the rapid response of emergency services. This premise has led to the development of a Public Warning System (PWS), which will allow authorities to send a text message to warn people in Spain of an impending natural disaster.
How does the PWS work?
According to the Ministry of the Interior, by July 2022 the system will be up and running, and will work on technology capable of reaching any part of Spain with mobile coverage.
Already widely used in countries such as the United States and Japan, the PSW will give authorities the option of sending the alert to the entire population, or to a specific region that is at risk.
The Ministry believes the system will facilitate a much faster response to dangerous situations, as the messages will contain details of what exactly is happening, as well as different measures residents should take to “act decisively in specific emergencies”.
The PWS will be tested throughout January and February and should be ready before summer, and officials have confirmed that it could be used in the event of a national blackout, if the telephone networks remain operational.
Caller locator system
Eleven autonomous communities, including Valencia, have already employed the new AML system, which allows the emergency services to locate callers with almost perfect accuracy. The locator is only available on Android devices at the moment but should be rolled out to Apple phones in March 2022, and the margin of error is 15 metres.
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