Safest Place During an Earthquake? Not Where You Think!
Editor’s Note: Remember that stuff about hiding under a table or standing in a doorway? This interesting article from the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International turns what you’ve always been told on its head. On this anniversary of the April 17 earthquake, 1906, find out the best place for you and your kids to be the next time the Bay Area shakes.
EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP’S ARTICLE ON ‘THE TRIANGLE OF LIFE’
My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI ), the world’s most experienced rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in an earthquake.
I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries. I was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation for two years, and have worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters.
The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under its desk. Every child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene — unnecessary.
Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them – NOT under them. This space is what I call the ‘triangle of life’. The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the ‘triangles’ you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building.
TEN TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY
1) DON’T DUCK & COVER: Most everyone who simply ‘ducks and covers’ when building collapse are crushed to death. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.
2) FETAL POSITION: Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. You can survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a bed, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.
3) WOOD IS GOOD: Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs.
4) NEXT TO A BED: If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back of the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.
5) NEXT TO LARGE CHAIR OR SOFA: If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.
6) NOT THE DOORWAY: Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed!
7) NEVER GO TO THE STAIRS: The stairs have a different ‘moment of frequency’ (they swing separately from the main part of the building). The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads – horribly mutilated. Even if the building doesn’t collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.
8) GO TOWARD OUTER WALLS: Get near the outer walls of buildings or outside of them if possible – It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.
9) GET OUT OF YOUR CAR: People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily survived by getting out and sitting or lying next to their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across them.
10) OFFICE PAPER: I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices and other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact. Large voids are found surrounding stacks of paper.
In 1996 we made a film, which proved my survival methodology to be correct. The Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul , University of Istanbul Case Productions and ARTI cooperated to film this practical, scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did ‘duck and cover,’ and ten mannequins I used in my ‘triangle of life’ survival method. After the simulated earthquake collapse we crawled through the rubble and entered the building to film and document the results. The film, in which I practiced my survival techniques under directly observable, scientific conditions , relevant to building collapse, showed there would have been zero percent survival for those doing duck and cover. There would likely have been 100 percent survivability for people using my method of the ‘triangle of life.’ This film has been seen by millions of viewers on television in Turkey and the rest of Europe, and it was seen in the USA , Canada and Latin America on the TV program Real TV.
Alternative Views from a Reader: Red Cross statement at http://www.bpaonline.org/Emergencyprep/arc-on-doug-copp.html, Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_Life, and Snopes comment http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/triangle.asp,
Thanks for this information. You are providing a valuable service. God bless.
Thanks for the above comments/help, very useful
Found this article very interesting. Sure changes the idea of the drop, cover and hold theory.
Thank you so much for the information. They are still teaching duck and cover in schools. I will be teaching my little one otherwise.
I would read the “Alternative views from a reader” section and any reputable sources you can find on the matter. This “Triangle of life” method appears to be controversial and many groups reject it.
For example, the Earthquake Country Alliance denounces the triangle method by name here:
http://www.earthquakecountry.info/dropcoverholdon/
Another helpful site:
http://www.ready.gov/earthquakes
Thank you very much, we just had a earthquake about an hour ago here in California and it was bigger then usual. I have never really known what we should do in case of an earthquake. Always been taught to get under something heavy…table, desk, ect.. I clinched to the sofa I was sitting on and praying for the earthquake to stop, I was kinda frozen with fear. After it was done and my daughter came out of her room crying. I realized I had no idea what to do in an earthquake and finally looked online to see what to actually do. It all makes sense. It’s funny because sites like ready.gov and red cross and others that you would think would tell you the right info, tell quite the opposite. So thank you so much and I can now tell my children and others the correct safety precautions to take during an earthquake. Makes sense now that I think of it to listen to someone that their job is rescuing people from things like this. God bless you
Snopes.com addressed this a number of years ago. Please read this before adopting this advice wholesale:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/triangle.asp