Specialists commented on the strange message that appeared on the phones of Vivacom subscribers in Ruse, as well as thousands of people in the country.
Although there was no official warning about something like this, it is apparently a test of the BG Alert early warning system, webcafe.bg reported.
This is the system through which the citizens of the country will be notified of disasters in the future through mobile phones.
At the moment, the early warning system in our country relies mainly on the sirens that we hear on June 2 and which are regularly tested.
In other countries, however, citizens are notified through their mobile devices in the event of a natural disaster. The goal is to implement this in Bulgaria as well.
Chief Commissioner Nikolay Nikolov, director of the DG “Fire Safety and Protection of the Population”, already explained in the spring that this system in Bulgaria will be internet-based and, in addition to messages, citizens will also receive instructions through it.
The site listed in Wednesday’s message is currently unavailable.
The Ministry of Electronic Government confirmed to BNT that this was a test of the system and there is no reason to panic.
The message was received by the subscribers of one of the three mobile operators.
There will also be a test on November 22 from 12 to 12:30, during which the phones will again produce the specific sound signal and vibration.
However, today’s announcement has apparently caused confusion among the institutions as well.
Journalists from News.bg contacted the headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, from where they were redirected to GDBOP. From there, they specified that they had no information about what this signal was and had not been warned that it would be released.
In Germany, for example, when testing such a system, users first receive a message that in a few minutes the system will be tested. However, we did not have such a warning.
The former Minister of e-Government Bozhidar Bojanov also confirmed that it was a test, but noted that the Ministry of Internal Affairs should “improve the process” and change the text “test test”.
Here is what he wrote on his Facebook profile:
Many people recently received a notification on their phone from BG ALERT – the early warning system that is currently being implemented. Three things:
1. It’s ok, no danger, it’s just a test message
2. It is high time to have such a system which is very useful in disasters and it is very good that the Ministry of Interior is implementing it.
3. MoI should improve the testing process (especially in a production environment). “test test” is not a good message.
Tags: message president test disaster accident warning system warned
