No 970 Monday 8th - Sunday 14th May 2023
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Now in our 20th year of keeping people safe and informed - The Costa Blanca’s oldest ‘FREE’ English language newspaper
SUCCESSFUL TRIAL OF E M E R G E N C Y A L E RT
t around 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, thousands of mobile phones across the Vega Baja started to emit an audible warning, accompanied by a message in both Spanish and English warning of an imminent flood. The message was the latest test of the ES Alert system, and was not a real emergency.
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It was in fact the second test carried out in the Valencian Community, although in this case, the geographical area tested has been much wider, covering the 27 municipalities of the Vega Baja. The ES-Alert system, which is integrated into the National Alert Network, uses Cell Broadcast technology to deliver messages to the mobile phones of users in a specific area. Warnings of the impending alert had been sent out for a few days prior to Thursday, although it still caught many people by surprise, especially as some were unaware that they had to acknowledge the message in order to stop the alert on their phone. The message did portray itself as a test, asking people not to call the emergency services, who were concerned that they may be inundated with calls from worried residents over the “imminent risk of the Segura River overflowing”. The Regional Secretary of Security and Emergencies, José María Ángel, attended the test together with the Director General of the Interior, Salvador Almenar; the mayor of Orihuela, Carolina García, and municipal and local police representatives of the region, present in the command post set up in Orihuela in the Ramón Sijé de Orihuela square, next to the old Tourist Office. The delegates did get to witness some of the startled attendees in the library who seemed to panic a little when the alert was activated.
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