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Alarm siren on a house roof: In addition to the mobile phone message, the classic siren will also be tested on Thursday
Photo:
Jens Büttner / dpa
On the occasion of the nationwide warning day, the three mobile phone providers Vodafone, Telefónica and Deutsche Telekom sent out a test alarm on Thursday.
At 11 a.m., an urgent warning tone should be heard, even if the phone is on silent.
However, devices that are several years old and models with outdated operating systems may not be able to receive the alarm.
(Read more about who gets the alerts and who doesn't here.)
The test alarm is part of an endurance test of the alarm structures in Germany, which is used to test the technical and organizational processes and to sensitize the population to the topic.
In addition to the warning message from the mobile phone company, people also receive notifications via warning apps such as NINA or Katwarn and can hear announcements on radio and television.
The official warnings will also be visible on billboards in the cityscape.
The mobile phone alarm sent throughout Germany by mobile phone companies is not an SMS, but a message via the »Cell Broadcast« system.
The test of the warning systems is intended to prevent the alarm being raised so slowly and incompletely in the event of a disaster, as was the case with the flood in the Ahr Valley.
On the last warning day in September 2020, however, there were various breakdowns, so the test warning from the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) was delayed by 30 minutes.
Warning is also received with no change in settings
The rumor circulated on social networks in advance that the warning message would only arrive on the device if users activated the "Test messages" function in their settings.
In fact, the test alarm sounds regardless of this setting, since it is sent with the highest priority level, as the BBK clarified on Twitter.
Lateral thinkers are calling for mobile phones to be switched off
In the chat app Telegram, opponents of vaccination and conspiracy theorists called on individual channels to switch off their cell phones on the warning day.
"Our devices stay off," it said in part.
Elsewhere there was talk of an “offline day”.
Apparently, the conspiracy supporters are worried about being monitored by the cell broadcast.
For example, users confused the »silent SMS«, which is used to fight crime, with today's warning message, which does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the recipient.
Greens leader Omid Nouripour accused the previous government of criminally neglecting civil protection.
"The quick and reliable warning of the population can save lives in dangers such as floods," he told the AFP news agency.
In addition to cell broadcast, more classic sirens would also be needed.
The FDP demanded in advance to disempower the federal states in the event of a disaster.
"In certain constellations, the federal government must be able to issue instructions to the federal states in order to organize civil protection efficiently in difficult disaster and crisis situations," said parliamentary group leader Konstantin Kuhle to the newspapers of the Neue Berliner Redaktionsgesellschaft.
hpp/afp/dpa