Important information about the recurring "Triangle of Life" e-mail spam

One more "catch-up" post taken from my website:

Many people ask me about an e-mail that circulates with regularity describing the so-called Triangle of Life approach to avoiding injury during an earthquake.  This theory, which holds that one should get NEXT to something uncompressible rather than UNDER something sturdy, has been rejected by many emergency management organizations as being based on a number of incorrect assumptions and questionable premises, and these organizations have predicted that this approach is more likely to cost lives than to save them if the earthquake occurs in a country like the U.S. that has well-constructed buildings. The following is a summary of the issue with links to more information:

Recently, the American Red Cross has taken an aggressive stance against what it views as dangerous mis-information that is continuing to propagate.  I recommend that you read their statement.

It is also well worth looking at the links accumulated here by an impressive array of emergency organizations that reject the Triangle of Life approach and explain why.  Especially interesting as well is a point-by-point rebuttal of the different recommendations that comprise the Triangle theory.  Here are just a few examples of the interesting points raised:

- While safe pockets have been found next to large objects like cars in collapsed parking structures, the object would have shifted or rolled over and the person would have been crushed before the "safe" pocket found its final home.  (Similarly, just because protected zones are sometimes found next to non-compressible objects does not mean that all non-compressible objects will result in a protected zone.)

- In developed countries, the vast majority of building failures result in crumbling and rubble, rather than intact ceilings coming down.  Being next to an object does not shelter you from being buried under the rubble.

- In a Turkish study referenced by the creator of the Triangle of Life concept, a simulation of a tall building being knocked down resulted in collapse of whole floors onto each other (pancaking), but that was not a real earthquake simulation.  It simply rammed the pillars and did not include side-to-side motion that creates much of the damage and that may send objects sideways into potential safe pockets.

It is also extremely interesting to see what the reputable myth-busting Snopes website has to say about the issue (search for "triangle").  Notably, some variations of the e-mail claim that it has been "approved by Snopes," while in fact, the opposite is true; further eroding the credibility of the circulated e-mail.

Furthermore, some of the background given in the e-mail is questionable.  For example, the e-mail claims that after the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, every child in a particular school was under their desk and they were all crushed; but the earthquake occurred well before the beginning of the school day (7:19 a.m.) and Mexico City officials claim that children were not in school at the time.

Please tell the kids to get UNDER the desks, not next
to them! (1983 Coalinga earthquake, photo from
Wayne Bennett, see URL to the left of picture.)

If you have received this e-mail (who hasn't?), and especially if you have forwarded it on yourself, I urge you to look at these links and pass along the information to anyone to whom you may have forwarded the "Triangle of Life," or to those who send it to you.

The major emergency organizations still agree: the best thing to do in an earthquake is to "drop, cover, and hold."  That is, get under something sturdy and hold on to it so that you can move with the object if it moves itself.

5/30/12 update: I happened across this very cogent extra perspective from a fire fighter and felt it was worth pointing out.

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Thoughts about the much-publicized North American earthquake prediction for late March 2011

This is what I wrote on my website in late March about the prediction from an ex-USGS scientist and made popular by Fox News.  The predicted quake did not occur, which of course doesn't mean that it won't happen tomorrow; but these thoughts are still worth considering for the future:

Many people are talking about a prediction for a large earthquake to hit North America this week, from a geologist who allegedly predicted the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, Jim Berkland.  I can't comment on the 1989 story, as I am having trouble finding details about it from reputable sources, but here are some thoughts about the widely-viewed recent Fox News interview in which he makes his current prediction.

Mr. Berkland makes several points in the interview about beaching of whales, etc., that may or may not be valid.  I am not in a position of expertise that allows me to judge.  They are certainly interesting, but aren't much on which to base a geographical location.

Similarly, it is true that some large quakes have occurred near the full moon, and it is also true that some large quakes have occurred closer to the new moon than to the full moon (like the 9.0 Japan quake, 6 days after new moon and 8 days before full moon).

The interview gives the impression that there has been a clockwise progression of major quakes around the "Ring of Fire," the seismically active zone surrounding the Pacific.  The graphics showed recent notable quakes in Chile (8.8 last year), New Zealand (6.3 last month), and Japan (9.0 last week), and implied that if one continues the clockwise progression, one ends up at North America.

First, while the 6.3 New Zealand quake did considerable damage, the real seismic event was the 7.0 earthquake several months earlier; so let's say we are talking about a 7.0 in this progression.

Still, earthquakes around magnitude 6-7 happen quite frequently.  What made the New Zealand quakes notable was that they took place close enough to population centers to have caused damage.

In fact, in 2010 alone, twelve earthquakes occurred over magnitude 6, including three >7 Ring-of-Fire earthquakes on the same day in the Philippines and one in Sumatra...and a 7.2 in Baja California and a 6.5 off the shore of Northern California (we didn't hear about the latter because it didn't affect us here).  The 6.5 occurred 1.5 months before the massive Chile quake, and the 7.2 occurred a month after the Chile quake.

Therefore, trying to demonstrate a clockwise pattern of earthquakes based on Chile, New Zealand, and Japan strikes me as trying to see a pattern by ignoring most of the data.

To be fair to Mr. Berkland, he never said in the interview that this clockwise progression including New Zealand pinpointed North America to be next; that was the Fox News graphics playing while Mr. Berkland spoke.  Still, that aspect, had it been accurate, would have been the most compelling part to me.

So is Mr. Berkland wrong about a large quake hitting North America this week?  I couldn't say.  Perhaps his other information is solid. In any event, if no large quake occurs here this week, he won't have been wrong; he said only that there's an increased chance of one.  And so should you be prepared for a sizeable earthquake if you live in an earthquake zone?  Of course!  Whether or not it is a result of this week's prediction is less important.

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"Why the heck do you live in that place with earthquakes??"

While some might question the wisdom of living near earthquake faults, it's notable that California is pretty far down on the list of historical disasters in this country.  Hurricanes and flooding in cities like New Orleans, Galveston, Miami, etc. have been much more disruptive, tornadoes and killer winter storms certainly wreak their havoc on a regular basis, domestic and external terrorism in places like New York and Oklahoma City have been very disruptive, and even the 1906 San Francisco earthquake did more damage by starting a fire than it did by shaking.  We haven't had an earthquake of that size (about 7.8 magnitude) in over 100 years, although we certainly could have one again.  The notable earthquakes in the state over the past century have typically killed about 50 people each, which is tragic, but is a small number compared to the number of casualties of many other typical causes; and this number will hopefully shrink as building construction and personal preparation continue to evolve.  And by the way, did you know that the area around Arkansas and Missouri, and the South Carolina region, are both very seismically active, and that there have occasionally been sizable earthquakes every few hundred years in Boston, New York, and Connecticut?

It's also worth pointing out, in the wake of the massive 2011 Japan earthquake (9.0) and the almost-as-large Chile earthquake (8.8) the year before that geologists are saying that the faults in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas are probably not capable of experiencing such massive events.  These faults, caused by tectonic plates that slide against each other, probably can only trigger up to about an 8 (the Richter scale and similar systems are log scales; you go up by 1, and the quake is 10 times larger).  In contrast, the fault systems in places like Japan, Chile, Indonesia, the Himalayas, Alaska, and the extreme north of California by Oregon that have given rise to the truly massive quakes in history (8.8-9.5 magnitude) are subduction zones, where one plate dives under another plate and creates a much bigger event.  So San Francisco probably will never experience something so massive, which is a bit of a consolation, but we should still take precautions against the problems that can occur from quakes like San Francisco 1906 or the 1989 Loma Prieta quakes.

Those in other parts of the country might say that at least they have advance warning about the hurricanes, etc.  That has not prevented large-scale disruption, damage, and loss of life caused by some of these hurricanes.  Plus, it's like I say in my talks, we DO have advance warning about earthquakes; we just have it much farther in advance than for the other disasters...so, there's going to be an earthquake, do something about it!  There, you've been warned.

For information about the precautions you can take, many of which are quite simple, check out my earthquake preparedness website.  And no, I have no financial stake in any of this...

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A blog is launched; opening thoughts

This is my first experience authoring a blog, and there will probably be a few technical bumps along the way.  Earthquake safety is an important topic in a place like the San Francisco Bay Area, and I hope that the information and occasional thoughts and tips here will be of interest to people who are trying to maximize their safety in our occasionally moving region.

It's important to remember that even though we live in a place that is subject to earthquakes, which are occasionally pretty big, most of the risks associated with California earthquakes can be minimized by taking some precautions ahead of time.  Just like one knows not to go jogging alone in the middle of the night in a dark park in a dangerous part of town, one should know what to do and not to do in regions subject to natural disasters.

I'm kick-starting this blog with a few entries in a row, first introductory and then a few entries that have already been on my website.  After that, I'll post occasionally; perhaps even relatively rarely so that I don't add to people's e-mail burdens.  I've got no idea about how many people will be signing on to this, but welcome to those that do!

-Matt Springer

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