[Rockhounds] How your morning coffee can help you survive an earthquake

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Walking while holding a hot drink comes with a hazard – spilling it on the
floor and yourself. But this relatively everyday activity can also teach us
about a far larger natural hazard too.

Earthquakes occur when tectonic plate boundaries suddenly move, grinding
against each other as huge amounts of tension stored in them is released.

The resulting shaking can vary from simply rattling a few plates and
sending ornaments spilling off shelves to the floor, to bringing entire
buildings crashing to the ground.

But in even the biggest earthquakes some buildings escape relatively
unscathed. When Mexico City was hit by a magnitude eight earthquake in
1985, around 412 multi-storey buildings collapsed. Most of the destroyed
structures were between eight and 18 storeys high while those higher and
shorter remained largely intact.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191017-how-your-coffee-or-tea-could-save-your-life-in-an-earthquake