06 May 2011 | 18:47

Kazakhstan residents may be warned of quakes via Twitter and SMS

Kazakhstan residents may be warned of earthquakes via Twitter and SMS, Tengrinews.kz reports. “The list of activities that we gave to the Prime-Minister includes sending the warnings via SMS,” the Ministers of Emergency Situations and Communications at the joint press-conference on May 4. “It is important to understand what issues need to be worked out with mobile networks operators,” said the Minister of Communications and Information speaking about SMS warnings. “It is important to clearly understand who should be on the receiving end of the warning. It may be inappropriate to sent the warning to all 19 million users of the service...” the Minister said at the press-conference in Almaty. “There are also interesting networks like Twitter that can be used by the Emergency Situations Ministry; there the minister and officials can update the population on the current situation and people will be informed directly,” the Emergency Situations Ministry said. “This is a set of activities that we are currently working on. As soon as it is approved, we will release it and report on the measures that are going to be implemented,” the Ministry said. "The Prime-Minister instructed us on training the residents on how to act in case of an earthquake. We will be informing the residents on this issue using the media,” said the minister.

Kazakhstan residents may be warned of earthquakes via Twitter and SMS, Tengrinews.kz reports. “The list of activities that we gave to the Prime-Minister includes sending the warnings via SMS,” the Ministers of Emergency Situations and Communications at the joint press-conference on May 4. “It is important to understand what issues need to be worked out with mobile networks operators,” said the Minister of Communications and Information speaking about SMS warnings. “It is important to clearly understand who should be on the receiving end of the warning. It may be inappropriate to sent the warning to all 19 million users of the service...” the Minister said at the press-conference in Almaty. “There are also interesting networks like Twitter that can be used by the Emergency Situations Ministry; there the minister and officials can update the population on the current situation and people will be informed directly,” the Emergency Situations Ministry said. “This is a set of activities that we are currently working on. As soon as it is approved, we will release it and report on the measures that are going to be implemented,” the Ministry said. "The Prime-Minister instructed us on training the residents on how to act in case of an earthquake. We will be informing the residents on this issue using the media,” said the minister.

Twitter SMS quake Ministry of Emergency Situations Ministry of Communications and Information Kazakhstan Kazakh earthquake