The Mar. 1 Stanford Daily reported that a student was seriously injured after jumping from a building during the Chilean earthquake. This incident provides a hard-earned lesson in earthquake safety. You almost always put yourself in more danger by running during earthquake and especially by jumping from windows and balconies. It is best to get under table or desk and hang on. Running outside makes you a target for falling glass, tiles, and cornices. Collapse of buildings in localities, including California and Chili, with effective earthquake codes is extremely rare. Almost all of the 2 million Chileans who stayed put survived. Fleeing outside is advisable only if you are unfortunate enough to be on the first floor of an unengineered structure with a heavy roof as in Haiti. Additional detailed reliable safety tips are available at www.earthquakecountry.org/dropcoverholdon and www.dropcoverholdon.org.

Norman Sleep

Professor of Geophysics