Sporting events reportedly had to adjust for the alert, with the Super League derby between Hull KR and Hull FC pushed back.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the alarm happened between overs at England\u2019s third ODI cricket match against South Africa at Southampton.<\/p>\n
Fans had been warned via a message on the big screen about the alert.<\/p>\n
In the Ireland v New Zealand Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup at Brighton there was an announcement on the big screen a minute before the alert and then the referee briefly paused the match while it was happening.<\/p>\n
And theatre-goers were advised to turn their phones off and drivers urged not to be distracted behind the wheel.<\/p>\n
Mobile phone users received a message making clear that the alert was a drill.<\/p>\n
A small crowd in the atrium at London\u2019s Liverpool Street Station hastily checked their phones when sirens emitted from devices in the test.<\/p>\n
One man was seen waving his phone around after it sounded at about 3pm.<\/p>\n
Some appeared surprised by the sudden noise but others seemed aware that the test would be happening.<\/p>\n
A couple who were sitting in Liverpool Street Station said they received the test alert while on the tube.<\/p>\n
Mark, 44, of Essex, said: \u201cIt came through twice for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole tube carriage\u2019s phones started going when we got signal.\u201d<\/p>\n
His partner Abby said no one appeared surprised by the alert, adding: \u201cChildren slept through it and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
A woman waiting in Liverpool Street Station said she was taken by surprise by the test of the national emergency alert before her daughter told her what was happening.<\/p>\n
Jasmine Patel, 53, said: \u201cIt did take me by surprise but then because Meera was with me she explained.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Patel and her 19-year-old daughter Meera Sreejit, both from Ipswich, were standing by one of the departure boards when the alert went off.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t loud,\u201d Ms Patel continued, \u201cbut you could understand that many people were getting it at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Government has used the system to issue real warnings five times, including in January during Storm Eowyn to warn people in Scotland and Northern Ireland about severe weather.<\/p>\n
Approximately 3.5 million people across Wales and south-west England received an alert during Storm Darragh last December.<\/p>\n
A 500kg unexploded Second World War bomb found in a Plymouth back garden triggered a warning to some 50,000 phones in February last year.<\/p>\n
Messages can be targeted to relatively small areas to pinpoint those at risk.<\/p>\n
Around 15,000 phones were alerted during flooding in Cumbria in May 2024, and 10,000 received a warning during flooding in Leicestershire in January this year.<\/p>\n
The system is designed for use during the most likely emergencies to affect the UK and warnings would also be transmitted on television, radio and locally by knocking on doors<\/p>\n
Government officials also met with domestic violence charities and campaigners for discussions on helping those who needed to opt out of the test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sporting events reportedly had to adjust for the alert, with the Super League derby between Hull KR and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-406842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115166580858006193","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}