Today, residents in 260 municipalities across the country will receive a test message from BE-Alert. This is the government's emergency alert system, designed to inform as many people as possible in the event of an emergency.
Never before have so many municipalities participated in the annual test of the warning system. Around 93 per cent of Belgian territory is now covered by BE-Alert, an alert system that was launched in 2017. Since September, all 285 Flemish municipalities have been connected to the system. Municipalities can use the alert platform to notify residents quickly in the event of an emergency.
Today, BE-Alert is today sending out a test message in 260 municipalities, a record number. Many people are therefore expected to receive a text message, voice message or email today.
‘For our cities and municipalities, this is the ideal opportunity to practise using this platform, because it is not tested every day,’ explains Yves Stevens of the National Crisis Centre.
‘For us, it is very important to test capacity today. The test involves 260 municipalities, so it is important to check how the platform copes with that peak load,’ he continued. ‘This test will be thoroughly evaluated in coming days. Based on that, we will make any necessary adjustments to the system.’
Who will receive a message?
In some municipalities, you will only receive a test message today if you are registered on the system, while in others, everyone in a certain zone will receive a message. ‘Today's test is a good way to let citizens know that BE-Alert exists,’ says Stevens.
Currently, 1.3 million addresses are registered with the system, but the National Crisis Centre hopes that number will continue to grow. ‘It is important that citizens register on our website.’
‘In that way, we can quickly send them a message if there is an incident in the area that they need to be alerted to quickly, like a fire, a power cut or contamination of the drinking water.’ Residents of Ardooie (West Flanders) yesterday received a BE-Alert message when a suspect who robbed two shops was being tracked down.
‘The mayor, governor or home minister can use the system, for example by sending a text message’. A governor can also send an alert to the entire province, even if certain municipalities are not connected.
Attention for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing
For the first time, the BE-Alert test is also being evaluated among vulnerable target groups. ‘More specifically, among people who are deaf or hard of hearing,’ says Stevens. ‘To them, we will of course send alerts using text messages rather than voice messages.’
‘Later, together with them we will evaluate how the message was received and whether we can improve our message so that we can alert vulnerable groups in society in a more inclusive and efficient manner.’ From now on, the National Crisis Centre wants to evaluate its test among a different vulnerable group every year.