The flood disaster sparked a discussion on how citizens can be warned in the event of an emergency in the future.
Always a topic: cell broadcast.
Berlin - The flood disaster in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate as well as the many dangerous storms that are currently sweeping across Germany have led to a demand: Many people want a central warning system with which citizens are informed about emergency situations across the board be able.
There are currently apps such as “Katwarn” and “NINA” for this purpose.
They work, but there are problems:
According to
chip.de
, just ten percent of Germans have one of the warning apps and its functionality is heavily dependent on the Internet, which can sometimes collapse in certain disasters and can make the warning apps virtually useless.
Another problem is that the warning apps can only send emergency notifications as simple messages - and they can be overlooked or get lost in the typical flood of messages on smartphones between WhatsApp messages and game updates.
Cell broadcast as a new solution in the event of a disaster
An uncomfortable question that has been bothering politics since the flood disaster in West Germany is whether the enormous dimensions could not have been reduced with a warning system that worked across the board. Cell broadcast would be such a technology that also has a lot ahead of warning apps.
Because this is a special mode in which the emergency warning can be sent to certain cell phones, depending on the cell phone masts near which the smartphones are located. In this way, the warnings can be sent to selected regions, which can be determined using the cell phone masts. In addition, the emergency messages can be prioritized differently. Everything is possible from a simple message that appears in the middle of the smartphone screen to a loud warning tone that works even when the mobile phone is muted. With cell broadcast, more citizens could be reached, the warning can be made unmistakable and is less dependent on the cell phone network, as only one message has to be sent over all cell towers concerned.
Cell broadcast: already standard in many countries - soon also in Germany
While countries like the USA, Japan and Great Britain have been using cell broadcast as a national emergency warning system for many years, the technology does not exist in Germany. But that should change as soon as possible. In an interview, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) referred to a feasibility study on cell broadcast that was about to be completed and commissioned by Armin Schuster, President of the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Aid (BBK). He is assuming that Cell Broadcast will be launched in Germany this year. Andreas Scheuer (CSU), the Federal Minister for Transport and Digital Infrastructure, also expressed a positive opinion about the imminent introduction of cell broadcast.
(fh)
