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meFor the first time since reunification, a nationwide warning day was held in Germany on Thursday. Different warning options should be tried in the event of a disaster, such as sirens, announcements through loudspeakers, messages through social networks and warning applications, as well as digital billboards. But the day of the warning revealed clear gaps in the alert to the population. On the one hand, it became clear that in many places there are no longer sirens, and on the other hand, the danger message from the NINA and KATWARN warning apps only reached smartphones with a good half hour delay.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior has now classified the delayed test alarm as a failure. “Activation of the test alarm on today’s warning day 2020 failed due to a technical problem,” the ministry said. The processes would be “processed holistically” and the results would be taken into account in the further development of the alert system.
The Federal Office for Civil Protection and Assistance in Disaster Cases (BBK) had distributed the official hazard report half an hour later than expected.
The alarm could be used in case of fire or the appearance of radioactive radiation, but also in case of power outages or earthquakes and floods. The Federal Office also warns about pathogens such as coronavirus through the Nina warning app in special situations. Other warning apps are Biwapp (citizen information and warning app), Katwarn, and various regional offerings.
In Berlin, that was clear beforehand, he would stay calm, wrote the “Tagesspiegel”. There have been no civil defense sirens in the capital since the 1990s. The reason: Berlin is too densely populated. According to the Senate Interior Administration, not enough warnings about the dangers can be given. A siren from the Berlin-Kreuzberg district can also be heard in neighboring Berlin-Schöneberg.
Elsewhere, too, he remained silent, with some Twitter users expressing disappointment. Your humor became fashionable. The mobile phone warning apps didn’t seem to show any warnings either.
The warning app that Nina reported on SedanIn any case, 30 minutes late, with the Katwarn app, the message for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania also arrived only 30 minutes later.
Nina did not reply to many users. “We know it partially worked,” said a BBK spokeswoman. In some cases, however, the modular alert system was also overloaded.
The existing sirens were also often silent, according to reports on Twitter. There was astonishment in some Bavarian places. by Munich A fire department spokesperson explained that there had been no sirens in the state capital for many years. Also in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania There was silence in many places, for example in Rostock, Schwerin and Neubrandenburg, because the sirens had been dismantled after 1990. In Brandenburg You could hear in Frankfurt (Oder), Cottbus and in some places the sirens of Potsdam.
In Thuringia The sirens went silent in many places and the warning app Nina only got the warning about half an hour late on smartphones. After all, the Thuringian police warned at 11 am via Twitter. In Saxony he remained quiet in Dresden and Leipzig.
The go-ahead for the apps, which was supposed to arrive at 11.20am, only came after 11.40am. The test warning was displayed as scrolling text on various TV channels. In the future, the warning day is scheduled every second Thursday in September.
The Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief has now admitted problems with the spread of the test alarm. According to BBK, the national report could only be delivered late due to the “simultaneous unscheduled activation of a large number of warning reports.” On twitter With. Because the concept of liberation discussed beforehand foresaw “a pure liberation of the federal government” and not of the states and municipalities. This provides “important findings for expansion” of the reporting system.
The Germans so far are not very familiar with the subject.
“This is not about causing fear and hysteria,” BBK president Christoph Unger said of the existence of the warning label. “That would be counterproductive.” But neither should the population be lulled. The fact is that Germans are not very familiar with the subject and that carries risks. For example, you should always have supplies in the house for a few days.
“Above all, our goal is to encourage people to think about it,” Unger said. “We saw it on a warning day in North Rhine-Westphalia that children in schools and kindergartens took up the issue. This creates a certain sensitivity and that is important to us. “
Refugee helpers asked war refugees from Syria, for example, to be briefed in advance about the action: the howl of sirens could evoke traumatic memories of bombing, for example. Elders sometimes remember the howl of sirens from their childhood during World War II. Even during the Cold War in the 1970s and 1980s, sirens sounded regularly in Germany. However, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, mermaids have been dismantled in many regions.
The psychologist warns of the consequences
This is where the criticism of the psychologist Andreas Hamburger of the International Psychoanalytic University of Berlin comes in, who does not think about the use of sirens.
“People who experienced airstrikes as children, whether in Germany during the war, or refugees coming from war situations, will react immediately and very strongly to such signals with feelings of panic. So one must or must ask: Is it necessary and what is the true purpose of triggering these reflexes in people who have had such experiences? “, Said.
From his childhood, he himself still remembers the Cold War drills of airstrikes, which always gave him a chill. “I don’t really understand why you need this staging to exterminate the old anti-aircraft siren again, because today there are much more efficient and also quieter ways.”
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