On June 30th, at a time yet to be established, the smartphones of all Sardinians will ring , even if set to silent mode, announcing a very serious emergency, an imminent or ongoing catastrophe .

But citizens can rest assured, it is only a test .

As happened last April 23 in the United Kingdom, Italy is also preparing to test an alert system called It-alert . As can be read on the National Civil Protection website, the dates for the experimentation have already been defined with the Regions. The island will be the second, on 30 June, two days after Tuscany.

July 5th is the turn of Sicily, Calabria on the 7th and Emilia Romagna on the 10th. By the end of 2023 the test will be carried out in all other Regions and in the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano.

«The system – it is explained – operates in cases of serious emergencies or imminent or ongoing catastrophic events , the It-alert service broadcasts a public alarm to all mobile phones present in a specific geographical area via a text message which contains useful information on the risk scenario and the related self-protection measures to be adopted quickly".

The message is notified on the device "by an audible alarm sound even if the mobile phone is silenced ".

Upon receipt of the message, explains the Civil Protection of Sardinia, the device emits an alarm sound and the text that is displayed indicates the sender (for example "Civil protection"), the reason why it was sent ("Flood alarm" for example) and the actions to be taken urgently (“Get to the nearest emergency area”, for example) .

A massive communication campaign is planned to make interested citizens understand that it is a test and not to trigger panic. The It-alert system was tested for the first time on the Sicilian island of Vulcano from 7 to 9 April 2022, a second time during the 2022 Strait Earthquake training activity, which took place from 4 to 6 November between Calabria and Sicily.