Mobile phones in Barcelona area sound for emergency alert test

Mobile phones across the Barcelona area rang out on Monday at 10 am during an emergency alert drill.

The test was part of the ES-Alert mobile phone warning system, used for emergencies such as flooding or wildfires.

Around 5 million people in the counties of Baix Llobregat, Barcelonès, Maresme, Vallès Occidental, and Vallès Oriental received the alarm, in the largest ever drill conducted in Catalonia.

Interior Minister Núria Parlon described the test as "positive," noting that surveys of 600 residents showed 95% had received the alert correctly.

She highlighted the "very high" coverage and stressed that such drills are essential to "strengthen a culture of self-protection."

Users heard a loud sound and felt a vibration on their mobile phones. The alert included the following message:

"Civil Protection alert test of the Catalan government. It's a drill. Do not call 112. In a real emergency, you would receive instructions to protect yourself."

The alert was sent to all active phones in the designated area without users needing to change any settings or activate anything.

The message was displayed in Catalan, Spanish, and English so that as many people as possible, including visitors, can understand it.

The system can reach everyone in the targeted area within five minutes while avoiding sending alerts to neighboring regions.

After the test, authorities will provide a link to a survey so users can report whether they received the alert correctly.

The drill, originally scheduled for October 8 but delayed to November 3, was last conducted in this area in September 2023.

Shortly after the drill, Parlon said that the emergency 112 line only received 101 calls – "few" considering the number of people who had received the alert.

The interior minister emphasized that testing the system is important not only because it is technically complex, but also to "get used to it," to understand when alerts should or should not be sent, and to reinforce a culture of self-protection among citizens.

Immediately following the test – which followed similar exercises carried out elsewhere in Catalonia — Civil Protection officials did not have information on whether any mobile antennas had failed, as this data is provided later by Spain's interior ministry, which manages the ES-Alert platform.

They pointed out that to receive the alert, phones must be switched on and not in airplane mode or turned off.

According to Imma Soler, Deputy Director of Civil Protection, 135 emergency alerts have been sent to mobile phones over the past three years, around 40 of them as part of drills. 

In 2025, eight alerts have been sent to mobile phones in the Barcelona area via the ES-Alert system.

Four of these were drills (in May and June, during the chemical risk siren test), two were related to a forest fire in Terrassa in July, and two were for heavy rainfall warnings, also in July, that affected almost all of Catalonia.

57 alerts sent in 2025

In recent months, Civil Protection has issued several real emergency alerts to mobile phones during actual emergency situations.

So far this year in Catalonia, 57 alerts have been sent, 44 of them for real emergencies.

Most of these alerts, 35 in total, were related to wildfires, while 7 were issued for floods and 2 for chemical accidents.

For instance, in July 2025, most people in Catalonia received a real alert warning of severe rainfall.

During that event, many users reported not receiving the alert and attributed the issue to certain phone operators.

Drills like today’s are intended to ensure that such problems do not happen during real emergencies.

To learn more about how the ES-Alert system works and Catalonia's readiness to address emergencies, listen to this episode of Filling the Sink.