What to do during an earthquake

Strong shaking usually lasts between ten seconds and a minute. That is not enough time to assess the room, recall what you have read, and pick the best option. The point of any instruction is therefore not to know it but to have it act on its own, the way fastening a seatbelt does.

The main danger in an earthquake is not the building collapsing as a whole. Far more often people are injured by what falls: wardrobes, shelves, televisions, glass, plaster — and outdoors, façade cladding and balcony railings. Hence the general principle: cover your head and be where the least can land on you.

The internationally accepted sequence is drop, cover, hold on — known in Türkiye as "Çök-Kapan-Tutun". Drop to the floor so the shaking cannot knock you over. Take cover under a sturdy table, protecting your head and neck. Hold on to a table leg: furniture slides across the floor in strong shaking, and your cover can travel without you.

If there is no table, sit against an interior wall away from windows and cover your head with your arms or a pillow. Interior walls are safer than exterior ones, and a corner of the room is not the same thing as the "triangle of life" from old chain emails, which is dealt with below.

Do not run for the exit or try to take the stairs while the ground is moving. Stairwells and doorways are where people are most often hurt: everyone converges there and cladding comes down from above. Lifts are out of the question — they can jam, and the power will almost certainly go.

In a single-storey house getting outside takes seconds, and if the door is right there with open ground beyond it — no walls, trees or power lines — going out is reasonable. But that has to be decided in the first second, not halfway through: falling in the doorway is worse than staying under a table.

If you are unsure, stay in and act as you would in a flat. In older buildings of adobe or unfired brick the walls come inwards quickly, and there proximity to the exit genuinely matters more than cover under furniture. That is the rare case where running out is the right answer.

Stay in bed and cover your head with a pillow. Crossing a dark room whose floor is already covered in broken glass and toppled objects injures more people than the shaking itself — bare feet and glass account for most cuts.

There is one exception: something heavy directly above the bed — a chandelier, a shelf, a framed picture, an air conditioner. Then roll onto the floor beside the bed and cover your head. Which is also an argument for not hanging anything heavy above a headboard in the first place.

Move away from buildings, further than their height if you can. The most dangerous place is the strip along the façades, where cornices, cladding, glass, air conditioners and balcony railings come down. Power lines, poles, signs and trees are dangerous for the same reason.

If there is no open space — dense blocks, a narrow street — press against a building wall and cover your head. It is a compromise: you stay within the fall zone but move out of the direct path and off the roadway.

Stop, but not abruptly: other drivers feel the shaking too and may lose control. Pull over away from bridges, overpasses, tunnels, poles, lamp posts and tall buildings. Stay in the car with your seatbelt on — the body of the car protects you from falling debris better than open ground.

Afterwards drive on carefully, and do not cross bridges or flyovers until you can see they are intact. The road surface may have shifted, and damage to supports is not always visible at a glance.

The rule is the same: drop, cover, hold on. On a shop floor the main threat is tall shelving and what sits on it; move away and take cover by low counters or columns. In a hall of seats, drop between the rows and cover your head.

Do not follow the crowd towards the exit. A crush in a doorway is its own cause of injury, unrelated to the earthquake. Leave once the shaking has stopped, calmly, and not by the main staircase if it is jammed.

Press the buttons for every floor and get out at the first one whose doors open. Modern lifts usually travel to the nearest floor when power is lost, but that is not something to count on.

If the lift stops between floors, do not force the doors and do not climb out through the ceiling hatch. Press the alarm, knock on the walls at regular intervals, and wait. The car is a strong structure and safer than the shaft.

In a pool the water sloshes over the edge — an effect called a seiche. The danger is not the wave itself but being thrown against the side. Swim away from the edge towards the middle, wait for the shaking to stop, and get out calmly without grabbing a swaying handrail.

If you are swimming in open water you will most likely not feel the shaking at all — water does not carry the motion the way ground does. The danger there is different and arrives later: a tsunami.

In deep water a tsunami is a gentle rise of tens of centimetres that a vessel passes over almost unnoticed. It becomes destructive in shallow water, where it slows and grows. So for a boat the rule inverts: if a tsunami warning is issued and you are already at sea, head for deeper water rather than the harbour.

If you are on the shore or a beach and feel strong shaking lasting more than about twenty seconds, that is your warning. Do not wait for an official message and do not walk out to look at a strangely retreating sea: water pulling back means it is coming back. Get to high ground, or the upper floors of a solid building, and stay there until the all-clear.

"Stand in a doorway." This comes from the era of mud-brick houses, where the frame really was the reinforced part. In a modern framed building a doorway is no stronger than the rest of the structure, offers no protection from above, and contains a heavy door that swings at your hands and head.

The "triangle of life" — a widely forwarded claim that you should lie beside furniture rather than under it, in a void supposedly left by a collapse. Major response organisations, the USGS and the American Red Cross among them, do not endorse it: it assumes the building will collapse, whereas in most earthquakes people are hurt by objects falling inside a building that stays up.

"Get outside as fast as you can." In a multi-storey building this is the worst option: you spend the most dangerous seconds on the stairs and emerge exactly where the façade is shedding.

Check yourself first, then the people around you. Put shoes on before taking a step: the floor is almost certainly covered in glass. If you smell gas, do not switch on a light or use a lighter — close the valve and ventilate.

Expect aftershocks. They continue for hours and days, weaker than the main event but arriving at an already damaged building: what stood the first time may not stand the second. If you have reason to doubt the building, leave once the shaking stops and do not go back for belongings.

The phone network is overloaded in the first minutes. A short message gets through where a call does not — tell your family you are safe and keep the line free for people calling for help.