- Android earthquake alerts reached 11.4 million Venezuelans last week
- The feature is now installed on 2.5 billion Android phones
- If you live in a country covered by the feature, it should be enabled by default
Since 2021, Android phones have come with a built-in earthquake detection feature — and according to Google’s figures, it was able to give 11.4 million people advance warning of the devastating twin earthquakes that hit Venezuela on June 24.
That figure comes from the New York Times, where the early warning arrived up to two minutes before the ground began to shake. The first warnings were sent just nine seconds after the earthquake started underground, according to Google.
The system works by using accelerometers built into Android phones to detect faster, gentler seismic waves known as p-waves. This data is automatically anonymized and reported in the background to Google, and when there are enough matching reports, an alert is pinged out to all Android users who may be affected.
Phones must be stationary to qualify as earthquake detectors — readings from phones on the move don’t count — and the earthquake must be magnitude 4.5 or greater to trigger an alert. For more densely populated areas, with more Android phones in them, the alerts are pushed out faster.
In three specific US states – California, Washington and Oregon – the Android alerts rely on actual seismic monitoring data from a network of 1,675 sensors that make up the ShakeAlert system, operated by the US Geological Survey.
How to activate earthquake warnings
The Android Earthquake Alerts System is enabled by default on modern Android phones: To check from Settings, tap Safety and emergency so Earthquake alarms. However, you must be in one of the 98 supported countries listed by Google here, which includes Australia and the United States.
How close you are to the epicenter affects the warnings you see in the event of an earthquake. The most severe alerts will break through any Do Not Disturb settings you have in place, take up the entire screen and play a loud sound. If less severe shaking is expected, you might just get a normal pop-up message.
As of last year, Google says the Android Earthquake Alerts System has detected more than 18,000 earthquakes worldwide and issued over 2,000 alerts. The feature means that at least 2.5 billion people worldwide have access to an early warning system for earthquakes, even though nothing is in place at government level.
However, this is not something you can currently get on iPhones, not even with a Google app. What iOS can do is relay official warnings from authorities, including for earthquakes: From Settings, tap Notificationsand you will see rocker switches for Extreme warnings and Serious warnings.
It’s not clear how many deaths or injuries may have been prevented by the Android warning system in the case of the Venezuela earthquake, but it appears that millions were given at least a few seconds’ advance warning that something was about to happen.
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