Residents of Kazakhstan's Karaganda region received a national emergency alert on their mobile phones that frightened many of them. The notifications turned out to be part of the "Qys-2026" drills, the website infohub.kz reports.
Today, November 12, at around 10:30 a.m., residents of Karaganda and the surrounding region received a national alert tied to the "Qys-2026" exercises. However, many users on the social network Threads wrote that the sound of the alert had badly frightened them.
"Karaganda, did you freak out too? I thought that was it, the apocalypse," one user wrote.
"Honestly, I got a real scare! First this notification came to my phone, and then a siren started wailing. For the first few seconds you have no idea what's going on. It turned out to be a test of the alert system as part of the 'Qys-2026' drills. But I had enough adrenaline for the whole morning," another shared.
"Did everyone in Karaganda just get a notification? I thought something was wrong with my phone. I was scared to death," another resident of the region noted.
"Who else got one today? To say I was scared would be an understatement. I was holding my phone when it made this awful sound and showed this alert. By the time I finished reading it, I nearly went gray," the user added.
Instagram also carried posts about how Karaganda residents' phones had literally "screamed" today. For example, the Department of Emergency Situations of the Karaganda region commented on a post by the karaganda_vkurse account.
"On November 12, as part of the regional command-and-staff exercise 'Qys-2026,' a readiness test of the territorial-level alert system was conducted with the transmission of the 'Attention everyone!' signal. The test was carried out as scheduled. We ask residents to remain calm: the signal was part of a training exercise," the department reassured residents.