Earthquake alert program failed in Turkey for Android

Google is developing a system to alert users about seismic activity in their region. The problem is that on February 6, this system did not work properly when earthquakes of devastating force took place in Turkey. The BBC investigated the case by interviewing more than a hundred people in three major cities across the country. And 90% of people received notifications only after the first, strong push.

Googles are trying to justify themselves. Leading specialist Mika Berman said that millions of Turkish residents were notified of the beginning of seismic movements. He did not back up his statement with statistics. Google also cited several statements from residents on social networks as an example, although they were made after the first push, only one post was made before it.

The companys specialists do not have a clear answer about the failure. Both a poor internet connection and the nature of the earthquake itself could have affected this.

The system works on the principle of crowdsourcing and receives signals from accelerometers. When a certain number of phones are simultaneously in the area of strong tremors, the Google system processes the data, determining the epicenter of the earthquake, taking into account its strength. The system then notifies the user of seismic activity. The delay for this program may be one minute, but it is enough to find shelter.

The strange thing is that before the aftershocks of 7-8 points, such a system began to malfunction. But it is also difficult to answer unequivocally how many users still received the notification and what the basic force of the push should be for the system to work.