Disaster Alerts on Your Phone Are Getting a Major Overhaul... What's Changing Starting October 30

90-Character Limit Raised to 157
Sending Agencies Expanded to Include Public Institutions

The character limit for safety alert messages sent to the public will be significantly increased from 90 to 157, allowing people to receive more detailed information about disaster situations and evacuation procedures.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety said it will increase the character limit for all safety alert messages to 157 starting October 30 and expand the list of sending organizations from local governments to all agencies using the system, including public institutions.

Until now, the 90-character limit on disaster alerts has made it difficult to provide enough information about dangerous situations, recommended actions and evacuation sites. As a result, messages have often been excessively shortened or split into multiple texts, causing repeated inconvenience.

The increase had been considered cautiously due to concerns that older mobile phones might have trouble receiving messages. However, after a yearlong phased pilot program beginning in October 2025, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety received no complaints about reception issues. During the pilot, about 48% of all messages sent to recipients were delivered without problems at the 157-character limit.

With this change, the public will be able to see at a glance the areas affected by disasters, specific evacuation routes and recommended actions. However, to ensure stable reception on mobile devices, the existing 90-character limit will remain in place for emergency disaster alerts and urgent disaster alerts.

The Ministry will also formally launch a "pre-screening feature for similar or duplicate alerts" to prevent unnecessary overuse of disaster messages.

The system automatically checks whether a message duplicates previously sent alerts before it is issued. In an earlier pilot, the number of messages sent fell by about 20% from the same period a year earlier, from 11,433 to 9,173, helping reduce message fatigue.

Park Hyeongbae, head of the Safety Prevention Policy Office at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, said, "We expect these improvements to help us provide the public with more detailed information about disaster situations and recommended actions while reducing unnecessary repeat messages. We will continue to improve the disaster alert system with the public in mind."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.