Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said today she wants to see the SMS system be able to alert phone users of a future earthquake within five minutes of its occurrence, so they can evacuate to safety quickly.
The prime minister chaired a meeting with relevant agencies at Government House today, to discuss how to improve the SMS early warning system, after it failed to alert the public fast enough to last Friday’s tremor, caused by a major earthquake in Myanmar’s Mandalay.
The prime minister said that it is not necessary to wait for more details about an earthquake before an SMS can be disseminated to the public, adding that, once there is confirmation of a quake from the Meteorological Department, which is responsible for earthquake surveillance, it is right to warn the public via SMS or through other channels.
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, the Department of Public Disaster Prevention and Mitigation and two major mobile phone service providers, AIS and True, agreed at a meeting last Saturday to cooperate more closely on the early warning system via SMS and other online channels.
Both AIS and True pointed out the difficulty of sending the SMS, claiming that they have to check the phone numbers of people at or in the close vicinity of the scene of a disaster, such as an earthquake, a process which can take several hours.
Also, the efficiency and speed of sending an SMS to phone users depends on the system of each provider, according to a report of last Saturday’s meeting.
