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People picture a building folding in on itself. In a house or an office built to a modern code, that is rarely what happens.
What gets people is smaller and closer. A bookcase. A television. A window. A shelf of tins. The room throws its contents at you for half a minute.
Every earthquake agency now teaches the same three actions.
Drop, where you are, onto your hands and knees. Cover your head and neck with one arm and hand. Hold on until the shaking stops.
That is it. It is short because you will not have time to read.
Dropping is not about hiding. It is about not being knocked over.
Strong shaking moves the floor out from under you. On your hands and knees you cannot fall, and you can still crawl. Standing up, you go down anyway, and you choose where much less.
Is a doorway a good place to stand during an earthquake?
The other instinct is to get outside. Also wrong, and for a plain reason.
You cannot run on a floor that is moving. The route out passes windows, stairs and whatever is falling off the front of the building. USGS says do not run downstairs or rush outside while it is shaking.
Most rooms do not have a sturdy desk in them.
Crawl to an interior wall, away from windows and away from anything tall. Stay on your knees and bend right over. That curls you around your own organs and puts your arms over your neck.
Plenty of people cannot get to the floor, or cannot get back up alone. The advice is not the same for everyone, and that is deliberate.
Stay in your chair. Bend forward. Cover your head and neck with both hands. If you use a wheelchair, lock the wheels first, then cover. If you use a walker, get as low as you safely can, then cover.
Shaking starts. Sort each move.
Tap an item, then a bucket
Getting out of bed in the dark means walking on a moving floor, past whatever has already fallen, with bare feet.
Staying put means one soft surface and a pillow over your head. That is a better trade than it sounds.
A chain email has circulated for years called the triangle of life. It tells you to lie down beside heavy furniture instead of under a table.
USGS has answered it directly. They call it a misguided idea, say some of the advice is potentially life threatening, and note that it was drawn from buildings that fall differently to theirs.
The first shaking stops and everyone stands up. That is not the end.
Aftershocks follow, sometimes for weeks, and one can be nearly as strong. Anything cracked by the first one is weaker for the second.
The same three words apply every time. Drop, cover, hold on.
The shaking has stopped and your house looks fine. What should you do with the gas?
Put shoes on before you walk anywhere. Glass ends up on floors, and bare feet find it in the dark.
Then look, in this order: fire, water running where it should not be, people hurt. The things that get worse on their own come first.
Almost everything dangerous in your home is fixable for the price of a takeaway.
Straps that bolt a bookcase to a stud. A latch on a high cupboard. A television strapped to its stand. A mirror moved off the wall above a bed.
None of it is skilled work, and all of it works while you are asleep.
Stand in your bedroom and look at what sits above head height.
A heavy picture over the pillow. A shelf of books over the desk. The hanging light you never think about.
That is your list. It is usually shorter than people expect.
Calls jam immediately after a big quake, because everyone dials at once. Text messages often get through when calls do not.
Pick one person who lives far away and agree they are the message board. Everyone texts them instead of each other.
Mains water can stop or turn unsafe for days.
You already have some. The tank of a water heater holds many litres. If the tank itself is undamaged, that water is safe to drink. So is the cistern of a toilet, though never the bowl.
Knowing that beforehand turns a tank in a cupboard into a supply.
The reason drills exist is that thinking stops during shaking.
Do it once, at home, feeling silly. Get on your hands and knees. Cover your neck. Notice what is above you. That is the whole rehearsal, and it is the part that survives panic.