Google gave alert before the worst earthquake in 100 years, this secret sensor of the phone saved millions of lives; You should also turn on this setting immediately

Natural disasters never come without warning, but modern technology has now started giving humans a very valuable opportunity to cope with them. Recently, two devastating earthquakes, one after the other, have wreaked havoc in Venezuela, causing many multi-storey buildings to collapse like cards and causing massive loss of life and property. These two earthquakes, with extremely dangerous intensities of 7.1 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, are being described as Venezuela’s most powerful and dreadful earthquake in the history of the last 100 years. Amidst this catastrophe, many users on the social media platform

X user asked – ‘How did Google know?’

During this Venezuelan earthquake, an X user named Dan (@Danpeviv) posted a screenshot and wrote, “I want to understand this technology closely, how did Google know just a few seconds before the tremors started that such a big earthquake was going to happen?” Like Dan, millions of people around the world are amazed by this magical technology. But let us tell you that there is no magic behind this, rather a huge network of smartphones in your hand and its secret sensor works.

Earthquake measuring ‘seismograph’ is hidden in your smartphone

How does Google get accurate advance information about earthquakes? This is directly related to your mobile phone. Every modern smartphone today (Android & iPhone) has a highly sensitive ‘Accelerometer Sensor’ in-built. Generally we see the use of this sensor in everyday life when you turn the phone horizontally (landscape mode) and your screen rotates automatically.

But this sensor also has another very advanced function – it can instantly sense and measure even very fine and light vibrations. Google has made this sensor its biggest weapon.

Know how Google’s ‘Earthquake Alert System’ works

When tectonic plates move underground in an area and primary waves arise, your smartphone immediately detects that vibration. Immediately after this, your phone sends a secret signal to Google’s special ‘Android Earthquake Alerts System’, which also includes the approximate location of that place.

After this, Google’s central cloud server combines similar information received from millions of phones in that particular area with the help of AI and data analytics. The server checks if multiple phones in the same area are recording the same vibration at the same time. When similar data is received from many phones, Google’s system confirms that this is not a normal vibration but the beginning of an earthquake. After this, without wasting a second, an alert is sent with a loud alarm to all the active mobiles present in that entire radius. Currently, more than 2 billion Android phones are active worldwide, which are part of this network. For this reason, it has become the world’s largest distributed seismograph i.e. earthquake detection network.

Google Earthquake Alert: Immediately turn on these important settings in your mobile

To avoid any untoward incident in future and keep yourself safe, you should turn on this life-saving setting in your smartphone today:

• For Android users: First of all go to ‘Settings’ of your phone. Search by typing ‘Earthquake Alert’ in the search bar given above. When the result appears, tap on it and check whether this setting is on or not. If it is off, turn it ‘On’ immediately and keep your location on ‘Always Allow’.

• For iPhone users: Go to ‘Settings’ of your iPhone and tap on the ‘Notifications’ option. Now scroll to the bottom of the screen. There you will see a section of ‘Government Alerts’. Set all the emergency alert types given within it to ‘On’ (green marks).