One of my friends sent me this information on earthquake survival tips. It’s worth the read.
THE NEED FOR AN EVIDENCE-BASIS FOR EARTHQUAKE SURVIVAL TIPS
Marla Petal, Ph.D. is Coordinator of International Program Development for Bogaziçi University,
Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute’s Disaster Preparedness Education
Program. Her doctoral research is on the causes of deaths in the 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake and
implications of these findings for public education. September, 2006
If you took the time to read Copp’s advice and you thought it might have some merit, or if you
passed it on to anyone else, please read this and pass this back up or down the lines. If you haven’t,
and just want a few good tips for earthquake safety you can skip all the way to #5 and #6.
#1 THE MYTH OF ANTICIPATING THE “TRIANGLE OF LIFE”
If Doug Copp has gotten your attention about earthquake safety, I’d like to address some of the
claims he makes that may have piqued your curiosity - because it’s always good to hone our ability
to think critically - and there are things you can and should do to be safer from earthquakes.
Yes, Copp is correct that there are places that after a building collapse are called “triangles of life”.
These “life safe voids” are the first places that search and rescue workers look for survivors. It’s
generally true that the larger the object and stronger the less it will compact. But don’t be fooled.
The force of earthquakes moves large and heavy objects. We don’t know a) whether it is possible to
anticipate where the life safe voids will be before the collapse, and b) whether it is possible to get
there during the strong shaking of an earthquake. What we don’t know in advance (but is worthy of
research) is the expected collapse patterns in particular buildings or where these life safe voids will
be when the shaking stops. If your building tilts in one direction, the “large and heavy object” that
you are near, could crush you against the wall….
Copp says “People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake
and crushes their vehicles” and that in the Loma Prieta earthquake everyone killed would have
survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them, because of the lifesafe void nearby. The problem is similar: observing a crushed car with a life safe void next to it
doesn’t mean much. The car itself may have moved after the shaking started. There is a lot of
evidence of cars and truck overturning in strong shaking. If everyone got out of their cars and got
down next to them, a lot of people would be dead or seriously injured from the weight of the car
jumping or sliding on them.
Copp likes to base his evidence on the Turkish “experiment” that he was involved with.
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to all involved, this was not an experiment at all, but rather a voluntary
organization’s search and rescue exercise. My colleagues in Turkey corroborate that a building
scheduled for demolition was used as a search and rescue training opportunity. They did decide to
put the mannequins in different spots to see what would happen. And indeed they reported finding
mannequins unharmed next to large and heavy objects.
What is the problem with this? Simply this: To collapse the building, they rammed the columns,
causing the building to pancake. They did NOT simulate an earthquake. Earthquakes come in
waves. They cause lateral shaking. They cause a variety of different kinds of damage. Since this
experiment didn’t produce anything resembling shaking it really doesn’t tell us anything at all about
what would happen during an earthquake. It could be that the large and heavy furniture would end
up at the other end of the room, nowhere near where it began. Assuming even for a moment that an
experiment could be done to support the hypothesis, the reality is that the particular results from a
pancake collapse, while certainly the most fatal, represents the least common type of reinforced
concrete building collapse. There are at least 4 other major types of collapse. Less than 3% of
damaged buildings in the Kocaeli earthquake were pancaked. So these results would tell us precious
little about what might happen to people in all the other buildings… the other 97% of damaged
buildings as well as the many undamaged buildings. Formulating the questions in order to advise
EVERYONE about what to do when the shaking starts is much more complex than the evidence in
front of Copp’s eyes.
#2. The “IF I CAN SAVE ONE LIFE” FALLACY.
Search and rescue workers desperately want to save lives. In reality, worldwide their experience is
of bringing out at least 98 dead bodies to 2 live ones. Some would like to turn the one life they
saved into a cautionary anecdote for the other millions of people who were potential victims. There
is a place for these stories, but extrapolating to the millions is not scientific. It really doesn’t matter
if one or if ten people are found alive next to a refrigerator, unless you look at 100 or 1,000
refrigerators after an earthquake to see what might have happened to people who might have been
near them at the time of the shaking. When you give advice to people about what to do during an
earthquake, you are basically advising everyone who feels the shaking.
In Kocaeli we would have loved to be able to advise the 20,000 who died so that even a few lives
could be saved. But remember that in order to save any of them, we would have to advise all
15,000,000 people who felt the shaking and were in a position to take some action. Suppose that our
advice could save 1,000 people from death in pancaked buildings (highly unlikely) but if it also put
.00007 percent of all the people who felt the shaking at risk of death and serious injury we would
have done more harm than good. In other words, the behavior that Copp thinks may save someone
in a particular collapsed building may put them at MORE risk in other collapsed or non-collapsed
buildings.
When I show Californians pictures from Turkish publications with people crouched down next to
refrigerators and kitchen counters, instead of under the nearby kitchen table, their jaws drop in
horror. Obviously these people are in danger from the refrigerator sliding and toppling and
emptying its contents, the hot things on the stove, the appliances on the counter and the packed
contents of the cabinets overhead. Obviously they should be under the kitchen table, or outside the
kitchen door. But this is exactly the lunacy that these kinds of “I found one person alive here”
anecdotes can lead to. Some people in Turkey will die in the next earthquake because of this.
Having said that, most of my scientific colleagues and I have come to the uneasy compromise that
IF people are occupying a self-built adobe structure with a heavy roof, and with no seismic-resistant
design measures, and if they are on the ground floor and can run out quickly to a safe and open
place outside, they should do so when the shaking begins. Otherwise, they should still drop, cover
and hold on. Adobe collapses are much more survivable when the roofing is of lightweight material.
But the reality is that protection from earthquake deaths takes place way before the shaking begins.
It will take a lot of well-designed research to learn if there is, in fact, ANY behavior that is better
than luck in saving someone from a building collapse, and that can be guaranteed not to endanger
more people than it helps! As with other helping efforts: “First, do no harm.”
#3. COPP’S OUTRAGEOUS ERRORS
Copp makes lots of outrageous claims for which there is no research, like “Everyone who simply
“ducks and covers” WHEN BUILDINGS COLLAPSE is crushed to death — Every time, without
exception.” “Everybody who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed.” At best these
are extreme statements that are hypotheses to be tested. It would be great for search and rescue
workers and social science researchers to get together to investigate hypotheses like these.
Copp also says “Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible…because
of the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.” There is no evidence of this.
A contrary hypothesis suggests that especially in concrete building with infill tile walls, the tiles fall
out and so could you. This is also a good subject for research, but at present it’s nothing more than
an untested hypothesis.
Please understand that even the best scientific methods don’t always provide perfect or even helpful
results. Nevertheless, scientific methods should be used to investigate our hunches. There are many
important questions that we haven’t begun to answer - but absolute claims like this are just total
rubbish and no substitute.
#4. COPP’S HALF TRUTHS
Copp recommends the “fetal position” in order to “survive in a smaller void”. The idea of being
small is fine. Getting down low prevents falling injuries, and making yourself a smaller target
means there is less to be hit. However, when we tried this informally in Turkey on an earthquake
simulation shake table, the “curled up in a ball” fetal position made us prone to rolling around. This
didn’t actually feel safe to us. What felt much safer was to get down as low as possible on our knees
and shins so that we had some control over our movements and could still crawl to a more secure
place.
Indications from research in Kocaeli is that Copp may be right in his advice to get down “next to a
sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.” Many
Kocaeli survivors would agree that this would have been both possible and safe in that earthquake.
This is a good hypothesis that should be further investigated.
Copp says “Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake.”
He’s right… They’re also the worst in case of fire after an earthquake. So while those in wooden
homes can take some comfort, be prepared to put out fires when they are still small with fire
extinguishers and blankets.
Copp says “If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed.”
Actually, the safest people in earthquakes in both California and Turkey were those who stayed in
bed. If the building tilts and the bed moves… the foot of the bed probably isn’t the best place to be.
Copp says that he “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. This might be good information for the grocery store, but only if the shelves are bolted to
the floor or ceiling. Frankly if you live in a building that you think is a collapse risk, ethically the
only good advice is to suggest that you to find another place to live, rather than to rely on a pile of
paper or a container of books in every room to save your life. This may seem pathetic, but at least 3
different publications in Turkey have photos of people crouching down next to enormous containers
of paper products in the middle of their living rooms. Let’s get real - our job is to live with
earthquakes. This kind of advice makes the tasks of public education and preparedness harder than
it already is.
Copp’s advice: “Never go to the stairs.” is sound advice.
#5. SO WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?
•Think through personal scenarios in the places you live and work. What spots seem safer than
others?
•Make your environment safer by fastening tall and heavy furniture and audiovisual equipment,
Move heavy objects down low.
•Keep shoes and flashlight by your bed.
•During the shaking, drop down to the ground. Cover your head and neck. Hold on to your cover or
something stable.
Why do we persist in saying these things? What is the proof? Research into the causes of deaths and
injuries in several countries has now shown several important patterns: a) Fatalities are almost
always associated with head, neck and chest injuries. These are the most vulnerable areas of the
body that need to be protected. b) Many injuries are caused by falling. If you get down yourself, or
brace yourself, you can avoid falling. c) A huge proportion of night time injuries are to feet and
legs… even in places with minor damage…. picture frame on floor, no shoes, no lights,
parents/children trying to find each other in the dark…. d) At least half of all injuries are from nonstructural objects. Many of these injuries are serious, made more so by the intense demand on
limited medical resources. We can’t be complacent about any unnecessary injuries when limited
medical resources will be needed to save lives. e) The smaller target you present to falling objects
the less chance there is of something hitting you.
#6. AND NOW THAT YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT IT…
Urban earthquake mitigation requires all of us to be involved in three major activities: assessment
and planning, reducing our physical risks, and developing our ability to respond.
ASSESS & PLAN
(Think and act now.)
•Sit down with your family and discuss possible scenarios.
•Decide on meeting places inside and outside of your neighbourhood.
•Identify an “out-of-area contact” for quicker communication and peace of mind.
•Designate others nearby to pick up your child from school in case of emergency, and make a
meeting plan with them.
PROTECT YOURSELF PHYSICALLY
(Take measures to reduce your physical risks.)
•If you aren’t sure about the structural soundness of you home, workplace or school, have it
assessed by a qualified engineer.
•Retrofit where possible. Move out, and tear down where not possible.
•Fasten large and heavy furniture.
•Secure water heaters.
•Have a fire extinguisher on each floor and have it serviced regularly.
DEVELOP YOUR ABILITY TO RESPOND
(Be ready to be part of the solution.)
•Have enough water, food, and prescription medications for a week.
•Keep a first aid kit.
•Check your “Go Bag” in your car and by your door.
Disaster preparedness is not accomplished overnight. It takes place in a series of small steps taken
at home, at work, at school, in your neighborhood and in your region. It is accomplished by actions
by individuals, families, organizations, institutions, and government.
The 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake is not far away. This is a good time to
make yourself a promise, and take one of these small steps today.
REFERENCES
American Red Cross (2004) American Red Cross response to “Triangle of Life” by Doug Copp.
Online at http://www2.bpaonline.org/Emergencyprep/arc-on-doug-copp.html).
Associated Press (2004) July 12. Online at
http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?sectionId=41&id=32725 and
http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=35319&format=
Petal, Marla (2004) Urban Disaster Mitigation and Preparedness: The 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake,
doctoral dissertation, Department of Urban Planning, UCLA.
State of California, Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, (2004) Sept. 7. Memorandum to
Operational Area Coordinators. Subject: Duck, Cover and Hold Procedure.
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