Earthquake survival advice attacked

A "virulent" email by a discredited earthquake survival expert should be ignored in favour of the standard "drop, cover and hold" advice, Civil Defence says.

The ministry was so concerned about the email contradicting standard survival guidelines that it sought advice from the New Zealand Society of Earthquake Engineers.

The email, by self-professed rescue expert "Doug Copp", says when buildings fall they crush furniture and doors but create "triangles of life" in the spaces next to them.

He says lying next to, rather than under, heavy furniture and door frames saves lives, and following traditional advice to take cover kills people.

The man and his message have been widely discredited in the United States, where the email originated, but it has been circulated widely enough to cause concern, a Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management spokeswoman said yesterday.

Standard advice in New Zealand for what to do in an earthquake is to drop, take cover under sturdy furniture and hold on, or shelter against an inside wall away from windows and bookcases.

"This practice will protect people in most earthquake scenarios," said the Director of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, John Norton.

"This is the drill practised by schoolchildren, and what civil defence agencies have consistently promoted around the country."

In severe quakes it was vital people responded immediately because confusion about what to do could lead to fatalities.

He advised people to identify safe places around their homes and work places.

Mr Copp claims to have worked at almost every major disaster in the world since 1985 and founded rescue teams globally.

He claims "100 per cent survivability for people using my method of the `triangle of life'."

Everyone who "ducks and covers when buildings collapse is crushed to death. Every time, without exception", he writes in the email article.

Wooden buildings are the safest because they move with the force of the quake, and when they collapse they create large "survival voids", he says.

"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."

He also says it is better to be near the outside of the building than the inside and that offices with lots of paper are good for creating large voids.

Society president and Geological and Nuclear Sciences scientist Mark Stirling said most earthquake-related injuries and deaths resulted from collapsing walls, flying glass, and falling objects caused by ground shaking.

"Ground vibrations during an earthquake are seldom the direct cause of death or injury," he said.

Most of the hundreds of quakes that hit New Zealand every year were too deep and too far offshore to cause damage.

The 7.3 magnitude quake that struck in the Tasman Sea on Tuesday was the biggest for more than 70 years, but caused only minor damage.

- NZPA