Most of us know to stay low to the floor if we're caught in a fire, or head to the basement if a tornado's coming, or board up the windows in a hurricane. But, because relatively few of us live along fault lines, the massive earthquake that hit Haiti this month was a reminder that we're far less versed on what to do when the ground below us convulses. If we're in a house or building, for example, our first impulse might be to run outside - but, counterintuitive as it might sound, experts warn against that since people are too often killed by falling or fallen debris as they try to escape.

    Given how many us travel in quake-prone regions today - including, tragically, the four students and two professors from Lynn University in Florida who perished in the Haiti quake - even folks who don't reside in California should know how to survive a temblor. But there are two different, and at times competing, schools of thought on the matter - both of which are considered valid but perhaps not always in the same situations.

    The first, and most conventional and widely accepted by the disaster-response community, is the "drop, cover and hold on" approach, which urges people to take cover beneath something like a heavy table to avoid falling objects. The second, newer method is known as "the triangle of life." It recommends lying down in a fetal position not under but next to furniture; as roofs and walls collapse atop those sofas and desks, buffer spaces are created that protect people from being crushed.

    Over the past decade, a consensus has been building that "drop, cover and hold on" is a more appropriate method for developed countries like the U.S., where improved construction has greatly reduced the likelihood of structures imploding. The triangle of life is thought to be more pertinent in developing nations like Haiti, where shoddy building codes make finding a "survivable void" inside collapsed buildings more important than shielding yourself from falling chandeliers. "You have to think about the hazard level of the area you're in," says Gary Patterson, a geologist and director of education and outreach at the Center for Earthquake Research & Information at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. "If you're going to play the odds, drop-and-cover may be the best way to go, but a lot of emergency responders might say triangle-of-life because they're the ones who see the fatalities in buildings that do collapse."

    One such responder is Doug Copp, who heads up a private California-based organization called American Rescue Team International, which aids rescue efforts during disasters like the Haiti quake. Copp, a leading triangle-of-life proponent, began his work amid the epic 1985 earthquake in Mexico City. Inside that vast rubble he says he kept finding that schoolchildren who had dived under their desks were still crushed to death, but that kids who had curled up on the floor between desks survived, thanks to the falling tonnage above them being cushioned by the desks themselves. Since then, Copp, 58, insists he's seen much the same thing play out in all the quakes he and his team have rushed to, be it in the First or Third World.

    As a result, he's become an outspoken and controversial opponent of drop-and-cover in any earthquake scenario, even where buildings are likely to withstand the seismic shock. "To me, [drop-and-cover] is not an applicable or safe thing to do in any building in any part of the world," says Copp. "There is nothing built by man that nature can't destroy in a flash."

    Many disaster experts call that a gratuitous if not irresponsible position - especially since triangle-of-life, while it may leave pockets of survivability in collapsed structures, can still expose people to deadly falling debris. Government bureaus like the Federal Emergency Management Agency （FEMA） and major non-governmental organizations like the American Red Cross still favor drop-and-cover as the best quake survival technique in the U.S. - and a 2004 Red Cross report called Copp's blanket assertions "inappropriate and misleading."

    Copp argues they're too wedded to a drop-and-cover culture embedded in U.S. thinking since the 1950s, when school kids were taught to scramble under their desks during nuclear attack drills. But the Red Cross points to research, much of it developed by the California Emergency Management Agency （Cal EMA）, that reports that lives were saved during U.S. quakes in recent decades because people exercised drop-and-cover. "We don't discount either earthquake survival approach, but drop, cover and hold on is simpler for people, like drop and roll if you're on fire," says Cal EMA spokesman Jay Alan. That's important, he adds, given that people have only a matter of seconds to react to an earthquake.

    Organizations like the Red Cross also deny they're clinging to old mindsets. For much of the last century, for example, the public was taught that standing in a doorway was smart during an earthquake; but the Red Cross has since discarded that recommendation since it's more recognized today that "many doorways are not built into the structural integrity of a building." What's as important as knowing what to do during an earthquake is what to do before it, says Alan, whose agency urges preparedness steps such as securing bookshelves to walls and knowing where to turn off gas lines.

    Meanwhile, U.N. security experts this week sent out a triangle-of-life Power Point presentation to staff in Latin America who are still shaken by the more than 100 U.N. workers killed in the organization's Port-au-Prince headquarters this month, including the head of the mission there. Drop-and-cover may be the way to react in the U.S. and the developed world, but people in the developing world still need as many reliable ways to stay alive as they can get their hands on.

    大多数人都知道火灾发生时我们应贴近地面，龙卷风来时应躲在地下室里，台风来时钉紧窗户。但相对而言，人们日常生活中不常面对这些状况，所以本月发生在海地的强烈地震让我们意识到自己对于地震时如何自救知之甚少。地震时当我们身处室内或建筑物中，想到的第一个念头就是往外跑---但是，与我们的直觉正好相反，专家警告说人们常常是在逃跑时被倒下或落下的碎片击中身亡。

    现在人们常会在地震多发区旅行，就象佛罗里达林恩大学的四名学生和两名教授在海地地震中丧生那样，所以就算不在加利福尼亚居住的人也应知道如何在地震中求生。不过在和时间赛跑的同时，人们对于地震自救提出了两种不同的应对措施，两者都被视为有效，不过针对的情况并不一定相同。

    最常见并且被应灾机构广泛接受的办法是"蹲下，掩护和抓牢",这个办法建议人们躲在诸如结实的桌子等物之下以避过坠落的物体。第二种更为新式的办法被人们称之为"生命三角",它建议人们以婴儿（在母体）中的姿势蜷缩在家具旁边而不是下面，因为屋顶和墙面倒下来时常砸在沙发和凳子上，这样中间就形成夹角，留出的空间可让人们免遭灭顶之灾。

    过去10年里，人们一致认为"蹲下，掩护和抓牢"的办法在美国等发达国家更为适用，因为这些国家经过加强的建筑结构有效降低了建筑物爆聚的可能性。"生命三角"之法则被认为更适用于海地这样的发展中国家，因其建筑物并不牢固，所以在倒塌的房屋内找到"救生空间"比躲避坠落的灯具更为重要。田纳西孟菲斯大学地震研究和信息中心创计划主任，同时也是一名地质学家的加里。帕特森说："你得考虑所处区域的危险程度，如果你想抓住一线生机，那么蹲下并掩护的办法可能是最好的，但是许多应灾人员可能会选择生命三角的办法，因为他们亲眼见证过建筑物倒塌产生的悲剧。"

    Doug Copp 就是一位应灾人员，他领导着加州一个叫做"美国国际救援队"的私营队伍，该组织的目的就是在类似海地地震这样的灾难中进行援救。Copp 是倡导生命三角的带头人之一，他自1985年墨西哥城大地震时开始救援生涯。当年他在巨大的碎石堆中一直寻找躲在桌子下面的学生，但发现他们还是被压死了，而那些蜷缩在桌子之间地面上的学生却活了下来，这完全是因为他们头顶坠落的物体被桌子给挡住了。从那以后，现年58岁的Copp一直强调在他和队伍奔赴的所有地震灾区都看到许多类似情景上演， 无论是第一世界还是第三世界（国家）均是如此。

    由此，Copp成了一位直言相谏而又颇具争议的人物，他反对人们在任何地震中都采用"蹲下、掩护"的办法，即使建筑物能承受地震冲击。Copp说："我认为在世界任何一个地方的任何建筑物中（蹲下并掩护）都是不可取也是不安全的，因为世界上没有任何一栋人造建筑物能经得起大自然的瞬间摧毁。"

    许多应灾专家认为Copp的观点不是不负责任就是毫无根据，他们尤其认为"生命三角"即便能让人们在倒塌建筑物中寻得一线生机，但也很可能让人们被下落物体击中而致命。象联邦应急管理署等政府部门以及美国红十字会等一些重要的非政府组织仍视 "蹲下、掩护"为美国最佳地震求生技巧。一份2004年红十字会的报告将Copp 坦白的论断称之为"不合时宜且误导群众。"

    Copp争辩说上述人士过分依赖自19世纪50年代以来就植根于美国人思维当中的"蹲下、掩护"文化，当时的学生在核武攻击演习时就被教导要躲在桌子底下。但是红十字会指出加利福尼亚应急管理署（简称加州应急署）进行的大量研究表明在近几十年美国发生的地震中人们之所以能逃生就得益于平时演练了"蹲下、掩护"的技巧。加州应急署发言人杰伊。阿伦说："我们并不排斥其他地震逃生技巧，但蹲下、掩护和抓牢这一办法就象火灾中趴下、打滚一样简单易行，"他还补充说："这点很重要，因为地震中人们只有区区几秒的时间作出反应。"

    红十字会等组织也认为他们并没受老办法桎梏，例如，上世纪很长一段时间里，公众就被告知地震时站在门廊处是明智之举，但红十字会现已摒弃这一建议，因为现在人们公认"门廊不是建筑物一体式结构的一部分。"阿伦说："在地震前做好准备和知道地震时该如何做同样重要。"他的组织建议人们提前做好准备工作，例如墙边摆放结实的书架，知道在哪儿关闭燃气管道。

    与此同时，联合国安全专家本周给拉美的工作人员发送了一个关于"生命三角"的PPT（幻灯片）文件，这些工作人员仍沉浸在本月太子港总部包括负责人在内的100多名同事遇难的惊吓中。"蹲下、掩护"可能仍是美国和发达国家应对地震的求生办法，但发展中世界的人们仍需要可行性与可靠性兼备的措施来自我拯救。