Hong Kong cuts emergency mobile alert activation time from 1 hour to 15 minutes
Alerts can also be tailored to specific districts under upgraded Emergency Alert System, security chief says
Hong Kong authorities have slashed the time needed to send emergency mobile alerts to residents from an hour to 15 minutes under the HK$150 million (US$19 million) system, while messages can now be tailored to specific districts, the security chief has revealed.
A hearing session into the deadly Wang Fuk Court fire in April exposed the lengthy time needed to trigger the alert. But security chief Chris Tang Ping-keung on Saturday stopped short of specifying the types of incidents, such as major fires, that would trigger the use of the Emergency Alert System in the future.
The system, established in 2020 and managed by the Office of the Communications Authority, has only been used once – to announce that Queen Elizabeth Hospital had been turned into a designated Covid treatment facility in 2022.
The department said it would take up to an hour to authorise and broadcast an alert, and argued triggering a loud, high-pitched alarm would have done little to help evacuation efforts.
Speaking on a radio show, Tang explained that the system had originally been designed around preset emergency scenarios such as earthquakes and tsunamis.