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India Conducts Nationwide Cell Broadcast Emergency Alert Test

Officials said the alert was a scheduled validation to add faster, geo‑targeted disaster warnings to the SACHET SMS system.

Overview

  • At around 11:58 am, Android and iPhone users nationwide received a loud tone with a flashing “Test Alert” notification.
  • The message identified NDMA and the Department of Telecommunications as senders and confirmed it was part of Cell Broadcast testing.
  • Authorities advised the public to ignore the alerts, noting that multiple messages could appear during tower and network validation.
  • The capability is intended to deliver real‑time warnings for emergencies such as earthquakes, tsunamis and flash floods.
  • Full rollout is planned to deliver multilingual alerts to all handsets and to complement SACHET, which already operates across all 36 states and union territories with billions of geo‑targeted SMS alerts.