Chinese city turns health code into geological disaster warning

A city in eastern China has introduced an innovative system that repurposes the health code concept to provide residents with geological disaster warnings, reportedly the first of its kind in the country.

Wenzhou City, located in Zhejiang Province, recently launched a "geological disaster warning code" mini program within the WeChat or Alipay ecosystem, according to local media reports on Tuesday. 

Through this program, Wenzhou citizens can receive information about geological disasters in their vicinity by simply checking the colors of the code.

China uses a four-tier weather warning system, with red representing the most severe warning, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

According to local authorities, the red, orange, and yellow colors of the warning code correspond to different levels of alerts. Red indicates a "very high possibility" of mountain collapse, landslide, or debris flow. Orange and yellow imply a "high possibility" and a "slightly high possibility," respectively.

Similar to the health code system, the warning code uses green to signify safety. When the code is green, citizens can go about their daily activities as usual, indicating that there are no geological disasters in the area.

Wenzhou, being a coastal city prone to typhoons, had previously implemented a typhoon-warning code in July 2021, which provides real-time typhoon information to local residents.