Earthquake Safety Plan

Two thing that you should not do.


My house is a 3 story building with a basement. This provides many opportunities for hiding in an earthquake. I did a short research on how to act when an earthquake is happening and although many points were common in most sources, one point remained rather unclear: to go upstairs or downstairs. Some suggest that if you go upstairs there is less matter that can fall on top of you. On the other hand, if you go downstairs, there is more reinforcements to stop the falling things. Although that is a thing of disagreement, most sourced agree that you should hide close to the strongest part of your house and under a heavy and hard object such as a table or tub. The table in our house is a bit too unstable and our bathtub is too heavy to turn over. If we found a way to make the table a bit heavier, we could hide under it. We would also have to move it though too because it is close to a bookshelf that could be dangerous. Of course we could prepare for the earthquake before it happens by strengthening the walls. This would be expensive and not realizable because the house is not ours. Due to the low earthquake risks in this area this would most likely not pay off for us. What we should do during an earthquake would to stay safe inside the house and not run out. How we could prepare would be by creating a safety kit with water, food and first aid. We could also use bolts or braces to support our shelves so that they do not fall. And as I have mentioned, if we strengthened the walls.