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At 10.15am this morning, mobile phones across Cádiz and the surrounding coastal areas suddenly blared into life with a piercing, siren-like alert, as the province took part in Spain’s biggest ever tsunami drill. In offices, shops and public spaces, every handset went off at once, startling many people even though they knew the test was coming. The alert formed part of the planned “Response25” exercise to check how quickly and effectively the public can be warned in the unlikely event of a major tsunami affecting the Bay of Cádiz.

 

The notification arrived as an official ES-Alert message in both Spanish and English. Spanish speakers were treated to an extra reassuring line:

 

(The Spanish version managed a bit more hand-holding than the English, just to make absolutely sure everyone kept calm.)

 

The English version read:

 

At the same time, a female, AI-generated Spanish voice sounded from many devices, calmly explaining that this was a simulation and then reading out the content of the message.

 

The alert was repeated about five minutes later, ensuring that anyone who had missed or dismissed the first notification was reminded of the drill. For many residents and workers, the sudden wail of hundreds of phones going off together was a powerful reminder of what a real emergency warning might feel like.

 

Today’s exercise is designed to support Cádiz’s ambition to become officially recognised as “tsunami ready” and to improve public awareness of how to react if the worst should ever happen. While there was never any real danger, the shock of the alerts will hopefully translate into valuable “muscle memory” for everyone who took part.

 

 

Image: Archive