In California on Tuesday, Californians accidentally broke the world record for the number of people crouching simultaneously.
Harking back to the fifties when school children would regularly crouch under their desks to prepare themselves for a nuclear blast, the latest safety initiative is not for bombs but for Earthquakes and the actions are the same. When the alarm sounds schoolchildren across the state crouch under their desks. At 10am yesterday, 12million people all crouched under a table all across California.
However, seismologist Andrea Foult was worried that this would lead people to a false sense of security. "The average school desk is barely strong enough for writing on," she said. "I doubt it would be strong enough for thirteen hundred tons of masonry. If a big one hits, our advice would be to get out of the house, and stay out of the house while it crumbles to the floor in front of you."
Being a seismologist, Foult could not let a public appearance pass without reminding everybody that a magnitude nine earthquake is long overdue for California. "For as far back as records go, Mag 9 quakes happen in California with amazing regularity, every ten thousand years to the day. We should have had one last Thursday, but it didn't come, so we're really worried that the next big one might reach Mag-10, and as it's a log scale, that would shake the world apart. Not to be overly dramatic or anything."
Meanwhile, millions continue to live within a hundred miles of the world's most dangerous fault, in Turkey.
