An Important Drill

Recently, on the 5^th of April, an NGO Geo Hazards with its partners conducted a massive earthquake safety drill event with the Tibetan schools in the high earthquake risk zones in India. We call it massive, because the drill extended to six states across the country, with about sixteen thousand school children participating.

These earthquake drills, a subject of specialization, can throw up infinite how-to-do-it Planning and Implementation scenarios, with also a need to make these drills a larger and a regular event.

The concerns during the Conception and Planning stages, perhaps because of sensitiveness of the subject, puzzle even the experts. In simplicity, these concerns would range from choosing an appropriate drill methodology to the right way of implementing it.

Some resources on understanding these earthquake drills, we found on the internet are below:

1. For Simple understanding http://www.essortment.com/all/earthquakedril_rxyi.htm
2. For Detailed understanding http://www.shakeout.org/
3. For more detailed understanding, one can try this Google Search or one of his/her own

Perhaps it is a collective of difficulties which pushes these drills to providence during the conception stages itself. Further, there is a risk of blame-game, if in the real event all lives cannot be saved. The real difficult part - the field implementation part, with all its inherent risks to life and injuries as well, also means convincing schools to be prepared, and reminded that safety of children is their responsibility too.

Much of this insight to us also comes from Hari (Mr. Hari Kumar, GeoHazards) who wants to see a safer environment for the school children. We at Quakeschool would like to extend our support and good wishes to the participants for the next event, tentatively planned on this June in the city of Shillong, India.