How to Prepare for an Earthquake in Bogotá

Neighbors with their children waiting out the earthquake outside the lobby

This week I experienced my first earthquake ever. As I looked out my 6th floor widow I realized I could see my 13-story apartment brick building swaying gently back and forth.

Fortunately, the 6.6 quake happened in Santander and what I felt were remnants of the incident. And so it got me investigating into the geology of my new home. Colombia is a country in a very active seismic area, surrounded by three lithospheric plates—Nazca, Caribbean, and South American.

Recent major earthquakes date back from 1999 in the coffee region and 1987 on the border with Ecuador, measuring 7.0 and 6.1 respectively on the Richter scale. Each responsible for taking 1,000 lives. The largest recorded dates back from 1875, hitting northern Colombia and killing 16,000 people.

Back to this week’s quake, there I was in the building frightened and untrained to earthquake protocol, you could say I was totally clueless. My boyfriend was standing under the frame of the door and told me to stand next to him. As I heard voices outside our apartment going down the stairwell, without thinking twice, I sprant shoeless down to the lobby where I found the rest of my neighbors.

Coming from the tropics, I always had practice hurricane drills in school. And when hurricanes hit, we had parties. However, earthquakes are a whole new territory for me and much scarier as not only do you not see it coming but you can’t prepare in advance. No party there.

So as I stood outside the lobby of my apartment building with everyone else, I thought it didn’t seem right to stand at the base of the building in case something fell. After bit of research I was very surprised at the information I found.

WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF AN EARTHQUAKE

• If you are inside, Drop, Cover and Hold on. The idea is to get down on your hands and knees before the earthquake knocks you down. Cover your head and neck move towards shelter (preferably the closest sturdy table or desk). Stay away from the kitchen and anywhere with high furniture so it won’t fall on you.
• If you have nothing to shelter you, move to the closest inner wall of the building. Stay away from all windows and outer walls as these are more likely to collapse.
• If you are already outside, move to an area clear of buildings.

WHAT NOT TO DO

• Run outside if you are inside or try to move to other rooms during the earthquake. Running outside can be of great danger as exterior walls of buildings are the first part of a building to collapse and moving from room to room can cause you to lose balance and fall.
•  Stand in the doorway. Movies portray door frames as the last thing standing after a quake. But this doesn’t apply to real life unfortunately. Doorways are no stronger than any other part of the house and will not protect you from falling or flying objects. Also, you have no way to hang on and so you are much safer crouching under a table.

Unlike the movies, your building is most likely not going to collapse like a flat pancake and people who find shelter under furniture have a strong chance of surviving.

I am embarrassed to say that the two things NOT to do is exactly what I did: Stand under the doorway and run outside when things got worse.

Next time I think I’ll just stay in bed.