Siren test Over 5000 sirens sound throughout Switzerland
Over 5000 stationary sirens sounded throughout Switzerland on Wednesday. As in last year's siren test, around 99 percent of the sirens worked perfectly, according to the Swiss Confederation.
04.02.2026, 17:44
04.02.2026, 17:45
SDA
The sirens sounded between 1.30 and 4.30 pm, depending on the location. The sirens sounded the general alarm signal at 1.30 p.m., a regular ascending and descending wailing tone lasting one minute. The water alarm was also tested from 2.00 p.m. until 4.30 p.m. at the latest in areas close to dams. The signal consists of twelve low continuous tones of 20 seconds each at intervals of 10 seconds.
The cantons and communes were required to repair or replace the defective systems immediately so that a high level of operational readiness could be maintained, the Federal Office for Civil Protection announced in the evening following the successful tests. Mobile sirens were also tested in various cantons. These are used to supplement the siren network in sparsely populated areas or when stationary sirens fail.
There were also false alarms during the siren test. In Oberwil bei Büren in the canton of Bern, for example, a siren alarm was falsely triggered in the morning. There had already been a false alarm in Suhr in the canton of Aargau the day before. According to the federal government's Alertswiss app, there was no danger in either case.
Over the course of the day, more than 15 million push notifications were sent, it added. As these were tests, an "Information" level message was sent, which does not generate a siren sound on mobile devices. The Alertswiss app is installed on around 2.3 million mobile devices.
The functionality of the sirens and the Alertswiss app are tested on the first Wednesday in February.
