The Mayor of Almaty, Erbolat Dosayev, announced a new emergency alert system during a government meeting on March 5, 2024. This system aims to instantly notify city residents in case of potential emergencies.
Dosayev mentioned that the new alert system will be launched on a pilot basis in May this year. The initiative comes as a response to the President's directive issued on January 25 to implement a system for emergency mass population alerts through mobile devices. The Almaty city administration, in collaboration with the Crisis Response and Civil Defense departments, plans to introduce the instant population alert system by the end of May.
The system will operate on the Mass Alert principle using Cell Broadcast technology, with an allocated budget of 475 million tenge. Dosayev highlighted that unlike traditional SMS alerts, Cell Broadcast technology does not overload the network and enables immediate and widespread dissemination of alerts to all subscribers within the coverage area of base station antennas.
In a separate incident, a strong earthquake struck Almaty on March 4, 2024, at 11:22 local time, with a magnitude of 5 on the Richter scale. Seismologists provided data on the underground tremors. For more details on the earthquake's impact and the response of Almaty residents, refer to the full article.