What to do if you are trapped under rubble

A collapsing building throws up an enormous amount of concrete and plaster dust, and it hangs in the air for hours. Dust clogs the airways and the lungs — one of the main causes of death among people the debris never actually struck.

So the first action is not to look for an exit but to cover your nose and mouth with fabric: a sleeve, a collar, any scrap of clothing. Breathe through it slowly and shallowly. If you have water to hand, dampen the cloth slightly — damp fabric traps dust better.

Only then take stock: what is around you, whether there is open space, what is pinning you, and whether you can feel your arms and legs.

Do not strike a match or use a lighter or a candle, however dark it is. A collapse almost always breaks gas pipes, and gas collects in exactly the kind of enclosed void you are in. An ignition there leaves no chance.

Use a torch or a phone screen for light — and very sparingly, on which more below.

Shouting is the worst method. The voice goes within tens of minutes, shouting makes you breathe deeply and draw in dust, and it carries badly through concrete. People found after a day underground were generally not shouting the whole time.

Tap instead. A metal pipe, a radiator, reinforcing bar, a slab — something hard against something hard. The sound of an impact travels through the structure far further than a voice, and it is what rescuers listen for. Tap rhythmically, in bursts of three to five with pauses, not continuously.

If you have a whistle, use it: louder than a voice, audible further, and it costs no strength. That is the single reason a whistle sits near the top of the go-bag list.

Save yourself between bursts. During rubble clearance, silence periods are called — machinery stops and everyone listens. If you notice the noise above has stopped, that is your moment: signal then.

The urge to claw your way out is natural, but debris rests in an unstable balance. Pulling one piece free can bring down whatever it was holding — shrinking the space you are breathing in, or causing an injury you did not have a moment earlier.

Move only if you can see a safe path and nothing above is bearing on you. Enlarge a void downwards and sideways, not upwards. If in doubt, touch nothing and put your effort into being found.

Under rubble a person lies motionless, often on concrete, frequently in wet clothing — and loses heat far faster than they expect. Hypothermia sets in even in above-freezing air and kills earlier than dehydration or hunger.

Put whatever you can find underneath you: cardboard, fabric, upholstery, plastic. Insulation from the cold floor matters more than what is over you. Keep your arms against your body and your knees drawn up; the body loses less heat that way.

Ration everything. Drink in small sips and rarely. If you have no water at all, do not eat: digestion consumes fluid, and food without water speeds up dehydration.

The phone is the most valuable thing you have, if it is with you. In the first moments, while there is charge and possibly a signal, send a short message saying where you are: a text gets through where a call no longer does. Send your location if you can.

After that, put it into power saving, switch off everything unnecessary, and do not use it as a torch without need. Check for signal rarely: constantly hunting for a network drains the battery faster than anything else. The charge has to cover several attempts across a day or more, not an hour of light.

This is the most important part of this article, and almost nobody knows it. When an arm or a leg is compressed for a long time, breakdown products build up in the crushed muscle. While the limb stays compressed they stay put. The moment the pressure is suddenly released, all of it enters the bloodstream at once and can cause kidney failure and cardiac arrest — sometimes within minutes of the "rescue".

From which follows a rule that runs against instinct: if someone has been pinned for a long time, they should not be hauled out at all costs by whoever gets there first. That applies to you as well, if it is your own leg that is trapped and has gone numb.

What is actually needed: tell the rescuers and medics how long the person has been under pressure and which part of the body is compressed. Medics prepare before release — putting in a line and starting fluids before the weight comes off. It is why rescuers sometimes work beside a trapped person for a long time instead of pulling them straight out; that is not slowness, it is the necessary order of operations.

Realistically several days, and with access to water and in mild conditions there are documented rescues later than that. What decides it is not strength or stamina but three things: clean air, warmth, and whether you are found.

So the whole strategy reduces to something simple: spend no energy needlessly, do not lose heat, protect your breathing, and signal at intervals. Search operations run for days, and the person who conserved themselves is more often still there when their turn comes than the one who shouted for the first two hours.

Call for help and mark the spot precisely. Note or mark exactly where the sound comes from — once work starts, landmarks disappear very quickly.

Talk to the person. A voice from outside changes the state of the person inside more than any words of encouragement: they stop spending themselves on panic and start conserving. Ask, and remember, how long they have been pinned and by what.

Do not try to clear the rubble yourself if that means shifting slabs or load-bearing debris. Besides the risk of collapse onto the person inside, there is the crush syndrome above — releasing someone without medical preparation can kill the person you are saving.

During silence periods, stop talking and stop anything that makes noise. Those minutes exist so that tapping can be heard, and one conversation nearby can cost someone their life.

No naked flame. No continuous shouting. Do not remove what is holding the structure above you. Do not drink unidentified liquid from the rubble — service water and whatever has leaked from pipes and containers will poison you faster than it helps.

And do not try to pull a long-pinned person free at any cost. At that moment the strongest urge is the most dangerous decision.