Earthquake Preparedness When You Live Alone

Anchor bookcases, wardrobes, and refrigerators to wall studs with L-brackets. Move heavy or breakable items from high shelves to lower ones. During shaking: Drop to hands and knees, take Cover under a sturdy desk or against an interior wall away from windows, and Hold On until the shaking stops. Do not run outside during shaking. After shaking stops, check for injuries, then check for gas leaks. If you smell gas, leave immediately and call emergency services.

After an earthquake, the most dangerous situation for someone living alone is being trapped or injured while phone networks are jammed and neighbours are dealing with their own damage. You could be pinned under furniture, cut off by blocked exits, or simply unable to reach a phone, and it may be a long time before anyone thinks to check on you specifically. Planning who will look for you, and when, turns that uncertainty into a response. Set a daily check-in with I'm Alive and add contacts who live both near and far. Text-based systems often get through when calls fail, and a missed check-in triggers automatic alerts to your contacts even if you cannot dial out yourself. I'm Alive is a check-in tool rather than a location tracker; it does not monitor your daily movements. Your location is shared only when you raise an emergency or miss a check-in, and it is deleted after 72 hours. Agree a simple post-quake protocol with your contacts. Ask them to try texting first, then to escalate to emergency services and report your address if you do not respond within an agreed window. Make sure at least one nearby person knows where a spare key is and can attempt a welfare check once it is safe to move around. Because aftershocks and overwhelmed responders can stretch rescue times into hours, the fact that someone is actively watching for your silence is what shortens the wait. Keep sturdy shoes, a flashlight, and a charged power bank near your bed so you can check in and signal even in the dark.