>>20433879 Ex-Raytheon Whistleblower Gives Inside Scoop on Antarctica. (PN) the whistleblower mentioned Bidan warned Erdogan on sending an earthquake. Google perhaps helped
Google alert failed to warn people of Turkey earthquake
27 July 2023.1/2
Google's earthquake warning system failed to get to many Turkish residents before February's deadly tremor, a BBC Newsnight investigation has found.
Google says its alert system can give users up to a minute's notice on their phones before an earthquake hits.
It says its alert was sent to millions before the first, biggest quake.
However, the BBC visited three cities in the earthquake zone, speaking to hundreds of people, and didn't find anyone who had received a warning.
The system works on Android phones, essentially any phone that isn't an iPhone. Android phones, which are often more affordable, make up about 80% of the phones in Turkey.
"If Google makes a promise, or makes an implicit promise, to deliver a service like earthquake early warning, then to me, it raises the stakes," says Prof Harold Tobin, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.
"They have a responsibility to be able to follow through on something that is directly related to life and limb."
Google's product lead on the system, Micah Berman, insisted it had worked. "We are confident that this system fired and sent alerts," he told the BBC.
However, the company did not provide evidence that these alerts were widely received.
More than 50,000 people died in February's earthquake.
After the first major 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck in the early hours of the morning, another major tremor shook the surrounding area at lunchtime.
The BBC was able to find a limited number of users who received a warning for this second quake.
How the system works
Google's Android Earthquake Alert System was announced in Turkey in June 2021.
The system is operational in dozens of countries around the world. The company describes the ability to send quake alerts as a "core" part of its Android service.
It works by using Android's vast network of phones. Smartphones contain tiny accelerometers that can detect shaking.
When many phones shake at the same time, Google can pinpoint the epicentre and estimate the strength of a quake. Google has made an explaineron how it works.
When an earthquake of magnitude 4.5 or greater is detected, the Android system can send a warning.
"This is an alert unlike any you've probably seen on your phone before. It takes over your phone screen," Mr Berman says.
The warning says "drop, cover, hold" and is accompanied by a loud alarm.
It should also override a user's do not disturb mode automatically, so you don't need to switch it on.
"No matter what state your phone is in, you should get that warning," Mr Berman says.
Google claims the system successfully sent alerts on 6 February to millions of people.
How much warning people should have got from Google would depend on how far away they were from the earthquake, Mr Berman explains. A message travelling over the internet can travel much faster than the waves of an earthquake travelling through the earth.
"Sometimes [the warning] might be a second or a fraction of a second, sometimes it might be 20 or 30 seconds, sometimes it might be 50 or 60 seconds," he says.
Despite extensive reporting across the earthquake zone in the hours, days and weeks after the quake, no-one mentioned getting an alert to the BBC.
So we began to search specifically for people who had got the warning.
Our team travelled to Adana, Iskenderun and Osmaniye, cities between 70km (43 miles) and 150km (93 miles) away from the epicentre.
We spoke to hundreds of people with Android phones.
Although we managed to find a small number of people who had got an alert for the second earthquake, we couldn't find anyone who got a warning ahead of the first, most powerful quake.
In Iskenderun, we spoke to Alican who lost his grandmother when a hospital collapsed. He says he had received the alert before, but he didn't get it this time.
We put our reporting from the earthquake zone to Google's Mr Berman.
He said: "It's possible, given the massive impact of the first event, that this just quietly happened in the background, while users were really paying attention to lots of other things. At the end of the day, I think that's probably the most likely explanation."
But the people we spoke to were adamant that none arrived.
Funda, who has been living in a temporary tent encampment since the quake, says she lost 25 members of her familyโฆ.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66316462