CANBERRA, July 27 — Australia’s emergency management official said on Monday that a test of a new national emergency warning system was successful after it was broadcast to 94 percent of cell towers.
The National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) conducted a nationwide test of the AusAlert mobile warning system on Monday, issuing an alert to all mobile devices at 2 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time (0400 GMT).
Speaking after the test, Minister for Emergency Management Kristy McBain said the signal was successfully broadcast by 94 percent of targeted cell towers, surpassing NEMA’s benchmark of 90 percent.
“The test has shown its capability to deliver emergency warnings at pace and scale,” McBain said. “This has been a very successful test. We have reached more towers than we anticipated.”
The AusAlert system, which will come online in October, was developed following the landmark 2020 royal commission into national natural disaster arrangements, which identified a need for a more modern, reliable, and nationally consistent warning capability.
The new system uses cell broadcast technology to send system alerts to mobile devices rather than SMS-based alerts that are reliant on mobile networks.
Patrick Hetherington, NEMA’s interim coordinator general, said the agency would assess all the data from Monday’s test to make necessary modifications ahead of the system’s full rollout. (Namibia Daily News/Xinhua)
