Google believes that it failed to warn 10 million Turkish earthquake

Google has accepted its earthquake’s initial warning system that Turkey failed to accurately alert people during a 2023 deadly earthquake.

Ten million people could be sent to the highest level warning of Google within a 98 mile sub -center – warned up to 35 seconds to find security.

Instead, only 469 “action” warnings were sent to the first 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

Google told the BBC that half a million people were sent a lower level warning, designed for “light shaking”, and does not alert users in the same major way.

Tech veteran first told the BBC that the system “performed well”.

The system works on Android devices, which make more than 70% phones in Türkiye.

More than 55,000 people died when two major earthquakes collided with Southeast Türkiye on 6 February 2023, injuring more than 100,000. Many were sleeping in buildings that fell around them when they jerked.

Google’s initial warning system was in place and lived on the earthquake – although it was underestimated how strong the earthquakes were.

A Google spokesperson said, “We continue to improve the system based on everything we learn in each earthquake.”

Google’s system, named Android Earthquake Alerts (AEA), is capable of detecting shocks from a vast number of mobile phones using Android operating system.

Because the earthquakes move relatively slowly through the earth, then a warning can be sent out.

Google’s most serious warning is called “tech action”, which sets a loud alarm on the user’s phone – do not disturb the setting – and covering their screen.

This is the warning that should be sent to people when strong tremors are detected that can endanger human life.

AEA has a less serious “aware” warning, designed to inform users of potential lighter shaking – a warning that does not disturb a device.

Tech action alert was especially important due to horrific shaking in Türkiye and because the first earthquake was killed at 04:17, when many users would be sleeping. Only more severe alerts would have woken them.

The BBC wanted to talk to users who were warned – initially aimed at displaying the effectiveness of technology.

But despite talking to people in the town towns and cities affected by the earthquake, in the period of months, we did not find anyone who received a more serious action notification before the earthquake. We published our findings after that year.

Google researchers wrote in the Science Journal that what has gone wrong citing “boundaries for detection algorithms”.

For the first earthquake, the system estimated that when it was actually 7.8, the moment magnitude scale (MMS) was estimated to be shaking between 4.5 and 4.9.

That day a second major earthquake was also underestimated, at this time an action alert was sent for 8,158 phones with this system and should be aware of alerts for only 4 million users.

After the earthquake, the researchers of Google changed the algorithm, and the first earthquake was imitated.

This time, the system produced 10 million, which take action alerts for the most risk people – and another 67 million people are known as conscious alerts.

Google told the BBC, “The initial warning system of every earthquake struggles with the same challenge – Tuning algorithms for large quantities of events,” Google told the BBC.

But Assistant Professor Elizabeth Reddy, Assistant Professor of Colorado School of Mines says that it has taken more than two years to get this information.

“I’m really disappointed that it took so much time,” she said

“We are not talking about a small incident – people died – and we didn’t see the performance of this warning the way we would like.”

Google says that the system is considered supplemented and is not a replacement for national systems.

However, some scientists are worried that the country is having a lot of faith in technology which has not been fully tested.

Herold Tobin, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, told the BBC, “I think it is absolutely important how good it works.”

“Will some places calculate that Google is doing it, so we don’t have to do it?”

Google researchers say the post -increase analysis has improved the system better – and AEA has carried forward alerts in 98 countries.

The BBC has asked Google how AEA performed during the 2025 earthquake in Myanmar, but no response has been received yet.