Five Steps for Protecting Yourself in an Earthquake

I. Putting together a survival kit

You should put together emergency kits in both your home and office. At the minimum, these should contain: bottled water, dried food, a flashlight and radio (both with fresh batteries), cash and a simple first-aid kit. A whistle, reflector or light stick can also help others to find you if you are in difficulties. Those who wear glasses should prepare an extra pair.

Earthquakes can cause gas leaks, so do not use candles or lighters.

To protect your hands and feet from broken glass and crockery, store thick-soled shoes and work gloves in locations where you spend a lot of time. You might also prepare a hard hat to protect your head from falling debris.

In addition, your home and office should have fire-extinguishers, gas masks, fire escapes and ropes installed.

II. Make arrangements with your family

1. Agree on a means of getting in touch. It is very possible that the members of your family will not all be in one place when an earthquake strikes. Some might be at work and others at school. In the event of an earthquake, you can avoid a frantic search for family members by planning in advance to meet somewhere such as a community center, convenience store or school where children in the family are enrolled. If the place you have arranged to meet has been heavily damaged, do not endanger yourself by lingering there. Experts recommend appointing a relative who lives in another region as a "communications hub." In the event of a quake, all members of your family should contact this person. Young children should keep on their person a card with relevant information, including phone numbers of relatives.

If the power goes out, communications will be difficult. Experts therefore recommend having a cellular telephone or old-style telephone (the kind that functions without power) in the house. However, they also stress that the airwaves and phone lines are a precious resource after a quake. In order to keep them open for the transmission of important quake-related information, limit your phone calls.

Surveys conducted after the September 21 quake indicate that the telephone can be deadly to quake victims. Many victims who had already escaped from a dangerous structure went back inside when they heard the telephone ringing. They were concerned that a relative calling might be worried if no one answered the phone. After the earthquake, love for family members actually posed a danger to them.

Some places in Japan have a comprehensive earthquake response system in place. After a quake, citizens each make their own way to a pre-arranged school, while teachers drilled in earthquake preparedness man cellular or satellite phones. People from other areas can then call in to check that friends and relatives living in the quake zone are okay.

2. Important items, such as personal information, the phone number of your insurance agent and medical information (e.g. whether you require dialysis or are diabetic) should be kept on your person. In addition, you can ease the anxieties that a sudden disaster can cause if you have told family members the details of your finances and your plans for the custody of your children.

III. Know the earthquake drill

When an earthquake strikes, you should quickly turn off the electricity and gas, and open a door to the outside to prevent it from becoming jammed shut. You should also stay away from windows and any furniture which might fall on you.

Experts recommend that you "duck, cover and hold on." What this means is ducking under a table or solidly built piece of furniture, wrapping your arms tightly around your head and covering your eyes, and holding onto a table leg with a hand. You hold the table leg so that you can move the table with you when you move, keeping it over you as a shield.

It should be noted that there is some dispute about these procedures. Rescue experts in the United States say that primary- and middle-school students should duck under a desk, face away from windows and cover their heads with book bags to prevent them from being injured by falling lights and glass. However, in the event of a major earthquake which brings down buildings, having children duck under desks could result in the children being crushed.

Other experts suggest a different sort of "ducking"-having the children hold their heads and curl up next to a large, low solidly built piece of furniture on a side where it won't easily tip over, using this piece of furniture to break the fall of debris. Even if badly crushed, the furniture would likely provide some space, space which might be enough to keep a child alive. Similarly, those in underground parking lots when an earthquake strikes are encouraged to duck down in the space between two parked cars.

If there is no furniture available, experts recommend crouching next to the lower part of a structurally sound column and holding your head in your arms. However, many people were trapped under columns in collapsed buildings during the September 21 earthquake, making it very difficult for rescuers to get them out. Therefore, if you notice obvious cracks in the column next to which you are crouched, move away from it.

Finally, an elderly person living with you who has difficulty moving can make escape more difficult. For this reason, experts recommend that such an elderly person live as close as possible to your home's exit. You should also make a habit of staying in close touch with your neighbors so that a helping hand will be available when it is needed.

IV. Live on a high floor? Wait it out.

When a powerful earthquake strikes, the choice between riding it out where you are and trying to flee outdoors can make the difference between life and death. The general view is that you should stay where you are because it is very easy to fall down and hurt yourself if you run while the ground is shaking. Once the initial shaking has stopped, and before the aftershocks begin, you can make a decision about whether to stay inside or flee. If you are in a public space such as a shopping center or hospital, follow employees' directions.

However, as a story going around about a safety presentation given in Taichung by a foreign rescue team after the September 21 quake shows, these principles are not set in stone. When an aftershock struck about halfway through the presentation, the leader of this team shot outside as if he were running the 100-yard dash. Meanwhile, another member of the team took cover under a table. This left many in the audience wondering how two people on the same rescue team could have such completely different responses.

Research by Lyu Jyin-horng, deputy commandant of the International Search and Rescue Association of China, indicates that if you are on one of the upper stories of a building, you should stay where you are. During an earthquake, elevators are off-limits, and it takes a long time to get down the stairs if you are more than 10 stories up. On the way down, you could fall or be pushed down; you could be injured by tiles falling in the stairwell; the building itself could collapse before you reach the ground; or you could make it to the street only to be struck by roof tiles, signs or potted plants falling from above.

Both the Lincoln Mansions disaster and the September 21 earthquake demonstrate that when a building collapses, it is the lower floors which are crushed. Those living on the upper floors are comparatively safe. Therefore, Lyu recommends that people living on the lower floors of a building get out as quickly as possible.

V. Practice, practice, practice

Knowing earthquake survival techniques is not enough. If you do not practice, you may find yourself weak in the knees, or with a mind gone blank when an earthquake actually strikes. In some countries, schools use a version of the game musical chairs to drill students to react in a crisis. In the wake of September 21, stories have also been heard of elderly citizens training themselves to roll from their beds to underneath a nearby table in three seconds. And when another earthquake struck Chiayi on October 22, many of those affected by the quake, such as the students at Chiayi Minhsiung College of Agriculture and Industry, were able to respond to the crisis by fleeing to safety because they had just undergone earthquake preparedness training.

Remember that to date experts have been unable to formulate a comprehensive set of procedures to guarantee safety in an earthquake. Therefore, during those 30 seconds when the earth shakes, the decision on how to react depends entirely on your familiarity with your location, your intuition and your grasp of the principles of earthquake survival. Naturally, if you have some understanding of mechanics-if you can tell which way a wall is going to fall or whether the cracks in a column pose an immediate threat-your chances for survival are even better. To make up for a perceived deficiency in this area, the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering is currently planning to establish earthquake preparedness classes with a focus on basic mechanics for teachers throughout the Taipei school system.

One last point is that if some misfortune causes you to be trapped by debris, stay calm. You only waste your strength by shouting. If your survival kit is nearby, you are in great shape. If not, then it is even more important to keep your head. Breathe slowly from your abdomen and try knocking against something to call attention to yourself. Resolve to survive and wait calmly to be rescued.