A loud alarm will blare from almost every phone in Australia in five months as a new emergency system is rolled out, scrapping the old SMS alerts and providing a lifeline for people caught up in life-threatening situations. Aus Alert is the nation's latest emergency warning system, which will send urgent messages to compatible phones within up to 160m of an impacted area. "It will alert people to the type of hazard that they are facing, its severity, whereabouts and importantly what action to take," Emergency Management Coordinator-General Brendan Moon said. The system will consist of two notifications: a critical alert that will sound a loud siren from the phone; and a second message that will detail priority information. The $132 million system is slated to replace the current state-based SMS emergency alerts, and a nationwide test of the program is scheduled hit phones across the country on July 27 at 2pm. The system will officially launch in October.