SCHOOL DESKS DURING AN EARTHQUAKE

School collapse in Mexico City earthquake, 1985. Thanks to unknown photographer!

I am of course much angrier about tens of thousands of children dying in their schools in China and in Kashmir, and wherever will be next than I am about Doug Copp who is, after all, probably well-intentioned. But what we are after here is an evidence-basis for what to teach and share about surviving a strong earthquake. And the evidence suggests not that everyone will be saved by anticipating triangles of life, but that it's too late when it shakes!

Every week I find about 10 bloggers reproducing Copp's viral e-mail. While one photograph does not constitute scientific evidence of what is safe in most circumstances - it certainly gives lie to one of Copp's assertions - that children died at their desks in the Mexico City earthquake in 1985. The main reason they didn't is that the earthquake did not take place during the school day. However, as this photograph shows, had the children in this school practiced "drop, cover and hold" they would mostly have survived unscathed.

Children in Kashmir and children in China did indeed die at their desks - betrayed by the very systems that made them attend school to prepare for bright futures. Given their proximity to the epicenter (negligible time between feeling the less damaging primary waves and the very damaging secondary waves), strong shaking, and speed of collapse - a reasonable hypothesis is that they had no time to do anything that could have been protective. (Photos of those schools also disprove that running outside is an option... the debris falls a in a radius around the outside equal to about 1/3 x the height of the building.)

Moreover, since clearly the survivable voids were not uncovered during the golden 48 hours for search and rescue, those who might have been lucky enough to survive for a time in those places, would most likely have died there days later... not really a prospect to get all excited about. (The subject of urban search and rescue is one to return to another time).

In a scientific study we would want to see a random selection of perhaps 100 schools in the affected geographic area, and look at construction type and number of stories as major variables.

Here is another real problem - typical double school desks in many countries have a footrests underneath that makes them a particularly awkward place to drop cover and hold. In these cases, getting down and protecting head and neck under the desk would be better than having these parts of the body exposed. Some countries (eg. Turkey) are replacing flimsy desks with steel desks. This is a fine idea, but it is no substitute for replacing unsafe buildings, and retrofitting those that are not built to withstand the expected shaking.

And finally - if you happened to have ever forwarded Doug Copp's email - please take it back and try to undo the damage. It's a good habit to research potential urban legends on www.snopes.com. Here's a 4-part investigative report on Doug Copp that should give people some pause:
http://www.abqjournal.com/terror/196540nm07-11-04.htm
http://www.abqjournal.com/terror/196965nm07-12-04.htm
http://www.abqjournal.com/terror/197273fire07-13-04.htm
http://www.abqjournal.com/terror/197538nm07-14-04.htm

On to other important topics...