The Truth About Surviving Earthquakes

Earthquakes and the Triangle of Life -- Where to be during an Earthquake
(Thanks to Michael for bringing this to attention)

Carol Weigold writes, Remember that USGS advice about hiding under a table or standing in a doorway? Well, Doug Copp's TRIANGLE OF LIFE' has a different opinion.



My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world's most experienced rescue team. The information will save lives in an earthquake. I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries. I was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation and worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985. The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under its desk. Every child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I did not at the time know that the children were told to hide under something. Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the 'triangle of life'.

The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the 'triangles' you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building.

TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY



1) Most everyone who simply 'ducks and covers' WHEN BUILDINGS COLLAPSE are crushed to death.. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.

2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. You can survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.

3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs.

4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back of the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.

5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.

6) Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above.

7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different 'moment of frequency' (they swing separately from the main part of the building). The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each and the people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads. Even if the building does not collapse, stay away from the stairs.
The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.

8) Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible - It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles.. They were all killed. They could have easily survived by getting out and sitting or lying next to their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across them.

10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices and other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact.

Large voids are found surrounding stacks of paper. In 1996 we made a film, which proved my survival methodology to be correct. The Turkish Federal Government, University of Istanbul and ARTI cooperated to film this practical, scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did 'duck and cover,' and ten mannequins I used in my 'triangle of life' survival method. After the simulated earthquake collapse we crawled through the rubble and entered the building to film and document the results. The film, in which I practiced my survival techniques under directly observable, scientific conditions, relevant to building collapse, showed there would have been zero percent survival for those doing duck and cover.

There would likely have been 100 percent survivability for people using my method of the 'triangle of life.' This film has been seen by millions of viewers on television in Turkey and the rest of Europe and Real TV.

Source: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=170608


Here is a youtube video by the same person. Important stuff!

Triangle Of Life Disaster Preparedness Video Trailer


This is truly the first new emergency preparedness information in over 50 years. Duck and Cover is outdated.

Slaughterfest In Iraq

Collateral Murder: WikiLeaks video from US helicopter gunship reveals glimpse of slaughterfest in Iraq

Daniel Tencer
Raw Story
Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:00 EDT

McChrystal: 'We've shot an amazing number of people ... none has proven to have been a real threat to the force'

US military personnel apparently mistook the cameras slung over the backs of two Reuters journalists for weapons when they opened fire on them and a group of people in a Baghdad suburb in 2007, recently released video footage purportedly shows.

The whistleblower Web site Wikileaks on Monday released a 17-minute video of footage from an Apache helicopter that was reportedly one of two helicopters involved in a fight against insurgents in the neighborhood of New Baghdad on July 12, 2007.

The video purportedly shows the deaths of Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22 and Saeed Chmagh, 40, along with six other people on a street corner. It also shows US forces firing on a minivan in which two injured children were found.

"The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured," Wikileaks states.

The two reporters arrived in the area after reports of skirmishes between US forces and insurgents. According to media news site The Baron, "there was no fighting on the streets in which Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh were moving about."

The video seems to substantiate that report, as it shows Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh (identified on the tape by arrows) walking around in a group of people who don't appear to be engaged in fighting. "Although some of the men appear to have been armed, the behavior of nearly everyone was relaxed," Wikileaks notes, suggesting that the men weren't involved in the fighting reportedly taking place in the area.

The video shows the Apache helicopter's camera focusing in on Noor-Eldeen with a camera slung over his back.

"That's a weapon," a voice can be heard saying on the video. Moments later, the US service member announces he has "five to six individuals with AK-47s. Request permission to engage."

"Roger that," comes the response.

The video then shows a massive volley of gunfire from the helicopter at the group of people including the two reporters. "We just engaged eight individuals," the US service member is heard saying.

The camera then shows a person, identified by Wikileaks as Chmagh, running frantically away from the gunfire. The camera follows the reporter down a city block, and Chmagh can be seen falling in a hail of gunfire.

A shortened, 17-minute version of the video can be viewed above. For the full-length video, click here.

In its press release on the incident, the US military announced it had killed nine insurgents during a firefight. "Two civilians were killed during the firefight," the statement added. "The two civilians were reported as employees for the Reuters news service."

But Wikileaks offers the video as evidence there was no firefight in the location where US forces launched the attack. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, witnesses said there were no gunfights in the area at the time of the attack.

Following the shooting, the Reuters news agency demanded an investigation. According to Wikileaks, the US military determined that the shooting was carried out in accordance with the rules of engagement.

Reuters reportedly obtained the video of the incident under a Freedom of Information request in August, 2007.

Allegations that the US carelessly killed civilians in its Iraq and Afghanistan war have been around for years, but they appeared to be corroborated last month by no less an authority than Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of US troops in Afghanistan.

During a virtual town hall discussion of the problems involved with "escalation of force" situations, where troops escalate a situation towards violence usually due to non-compliance by civilians, McChrystal said: "We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."

McChrystal added: "[T]o my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it."

Since its release earlier Monday, the Wikileaks video has made waves online. As of Monday afternoon, it occupied all four of the top spots on the social news site Reddit.com.

This video is from WikiLeaks, uploaded to YouTube April 3, 2010.