00:00Millions of smartphones knew an earthquake was hitting Venezuela before the government did.
00:05Here's how.
00:06In June, back-to-back high-magnitude earthquakes struck northwestern Venezuela.
00:11The country doesn't have an official national early warning system, but Google provides alerts.
00:16The tech giant uses the motion sensor inside Android phones as a miniature seismometer.
00:21Within three seconds, phones on the ground in Venezuela felt the initial waves.
00:26Within nine seconds, Google's servers pushed out emergency alerts to 11.4 million people.
00:32Depending on how far a person was from the earthquake's epicenter, it gave them up to two minutes to take
00:38cover, according to Google's own data.
00:40Globally, there's heated discussion around the tool's actual impact, and unfortunately, it only works on Android phones.
00:47But in countries without national warning systems, it might represent a lifeline.
00:52To switch it on, navigate to safety and emergency, or location, advanced, and toggle on earthquake alerts.
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