The invention relates to a method for sending an emergency message to mobile terminals located in an emergency area, in which at least location information and a subscriber identification code is stored in a database for a plurality of mobile terminals. Then the emergency area is determined. Next, a set of destination terminals is selected out of the database having location information that corresponds to the emergency area. To each of the destination terminals the emergency message is sent by means of an SMS message or a voice message using said subscriber identification code. By using the method according to the invention, all the terminals present in the emergency area can be reached, independent of whether they are subscribed to an SMS alerting service, and not depending on a certain channel to receive the message.