What about the "Triangle of Life" e-mail that has been circulating for years?

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 incorrect assumptions and questionable premises, and these organizations have predicted that this approach is more likely to cost lives than to save them.

It is 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, 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 results 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.

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."

The major emergency organizations 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.

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