earthquake alert
Earthquake Alert in Phone: For some time now, earthquakes have been continuously occurring in the country and abroad and some earthquakes have proved to be very dangerous, such as the earthquakes in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Philippines, Russia and Taiwan have proven fatal. Light earthquake tremors keep occurring continuously in India too and this week, on Friday, November 21, 2025, between about 10:08 and 10:10 am, earthquake tremors were felt in Kolkata and many districts of West Bengal. Its intensity was measured around 5.5 to 5.7 on the Richter scale.
Earthquake alert can save life
In such a situation, it is very important to receive earthquake alerts as it can help keep you and your family safe. Earthquakes happen without warning, so even a few seconds of alert can be life-saving. Earthquake alert systems send Internet signals much faster (at the speed of light) than seismic waves. This means you may get a warning seconds before a serious shock occurs. These few seconds give you a chance to protect yourself in a life-saving window.
There are mainly two types of settings or apps you should have in your phone to get earthquake alerts.
The built-in settings of the phone are most important because in Android smartphones Google provides an ‘Android Earthquake Alerts System’ which detects earthquakes using your phone’s sensors like accelerometer. Most new Android phones have this feature turned on by default.
figure out how to turn it on
- Open the Settings app.
- Scroll to and tap the Safety & Emergency option.
- (In some phones this may also be inside Location and Privacy) settings.
- Tap Earthquake Alerts.
- Turn this feature on.
Note that your phone must have an Internet connection (mobile data or Wi-Fi) and Location Services turned on for this feature to work. It can send warnings for earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or more.
For iPhone (iOS) users
The iPhone also has similar emergency alerts that can be triggered by
- Open Settings.
- Go to Notifications.
- Scroll to the bottom and turn on Emergency Alerts or Government Alerts.
Special earthquake alert apps
You can also install specially designed earthquake warning apps from the Play Store or App Store. These apps often use seismic data from around the world. Some popular apps that may be available in India like
- My Earthquake Alerts
- Earthquake Network
- EMSC LastQuake
- Bhudev App which has been jointly developed by Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority and IIT Roorkee and is mainly for Uttarakhand.
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