Will there be a phone alert for the eclipse? Last summer, ES-Alert went off in Castilla-La Mancha

For the eclipse of 2 August 2027, nobody has announced a phone alert, as far as we know. Last summer one did go off: on the morning of the eclipse, hours before it arrived, an ES-Alert, Spain’s emergency alert system for mobile phones, reached phones across the central Spanish region of Castilla-La Mancha with advice on traffic, fire prevention and protecting your eyes, and the message ended with “NO LLAME AL 112” (“do not call 112”, the emergency number). Xataka Móvil, a Spanish tech site, attributed it to Civil Protection, and El Grupo Informático to the regional government; according to the latter, Castilla-La Mancha was the only region that sent one, and we haven’t found any other.

What the alert said

According to Xataka Móvil, which reported it the same day, the message asked people to:

• avoid unnecessary journeys;
• if they had to drive, check road conditions, carry the basics and not stop on the hard shoulder;
• use certified glasses, protect themselves from the sun and keep an eye on minors and people with disabilities;
• respect access restrictions, not light fires and not park on dry vegetation;
• and not call 112 except in a real emergency.

The reasons, according to the same site: more than 55,000 people expected at the viewing points in Guadalajara and Cuenca, the risk of forest fires typical of that time of year, and protecting people’s eyes. That day the regional government also activated its regional emergency plan, PLATECAM, in its alert phase across the whole region, with crowds expected above all in Cuenca and Guadalajara, according to its own note on the 112 website. And, according to Xataka Móvil, it increased the capacity of its hospitals’ ophthalmology services.

Why it drew criticism

Xataka Móvil stressed that the alert was not a response to an imminent danger. El Grupo Informático, whose headline asked whether it was necessary or an abuse, explained that the regional government chose level 1, the one that is received in every case, and that this is why the beep and the vibration went off on millions of phones in the region.

How ES-Alert works

There’s nothing to install and no need to sign up. The alert reaches, through the phone masts, every phone able to receive it that is connected to the network in the affected area. It can be sent by the emergency coordination centres of Spain’s autonomous regions. And it can’t be switched off: according to the Civil Protection information cited by Xataka Móvil, the highest-level alerts cannot be disabled on the phone, and the “pre-alerts” switch corresponds to a level that ES-Alert doesn’t use.

And on 2 August 2027?

Totality will cross 105 municipalities in Cádiz, Málaga, Granada and Almería, plus Ceuta and Melilla, in the middle of the morning on a Monday in August, with the maximum between 10:46 and 10:51 Spanish time (CEST, UTC+2). Whether to send an alert is up to each region, and none has announced one, as far as we know.

What the Castilla-La Mancha alert asked for applies to any eclipse with big crowds: arrive in good time and don’t stop on the hard shoulder (we explain this in can you drive during the eclipse?), bring water and look for shade, glasses for everyone, which you can check with our glasses guide, and call 112 only if there is an emergency.

If it goes off while you’re watching the eclipse, don’t look up at the Sun with your glasses off to read it. Lower your head, take off your glasses and read; to look again, put your glasses on before raising your head, the same movement that the family guide (in Spanish) suggests practising with children.

To get your own alerts without depending on anyone, live tells you the phase in your municipality minute by minute and when to put your glasses on and take them off, and the apps that are worth having, the IGN’s official one included, are in eclipse apps. What the institutions recommended last summer is in official eclipse advice in Spain, and what a town council needs to prepare, in what Spanish town councils should prepare for the eclipse.

Sources: El ES-Alert del eclipse en Castilla-La Mancha — Xataka Móvil, Pepu Ricca (in Spanish: what the alert asked for, the “NO LLAME AL 112”, the expected crowds, the fire risk, the extra ophthalmology capacity and that it was not a response to an imminent danger); La notificación Es-Alert llega a millones de móviles por el eclipse. La cuestión es si era necesario, o un abuso — El Grupo Informático (in Spanish: that the regional government sent it, that it was the only region to do so, level 1, the beep and the vibration, and the question in the headline); El Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha activa el PLATECAM en fase de alerta en toda la región — 112 Castilla-La Mancha (in Spanish: the emergency plan activated and where the biggest crowds were expected); No hace falta activar las alertas de Protección Civil en el móvil — Xataka Móvil, Sergio Asenjo (in Spanish: how ES-Alert arrives, who sends it and what can’t be disabled); eclipseando data (municipalities with totality, from the IGN; time of totality, skyfield + DE440s engine).