I found this poster last month on a wall in a corporate training facility in Singapore.  Do you think its publishers take earthquakes seriously?

• The poster is on A4 size (letter-size) paper, so you have to be within 60 cm (2 feet) of it to read it. The text is in a 10-point san-serif font, too small to be read easily (at least by me).
• Notice the word “tremors” in the headline. That word perpetuates the absurd – and in my opinion, misleading and therefore dangerous – official fiction here that there has never been an earthquake in Singapore. That shaking that swayed my 16th-floor apartment in February 2008 so much that the kitchen draws rolled open?  Not an earthquake. Just a “tremor.”
• The poster includes six (6) childish images by cartoonist and illustrator Miel Prudencio Ma.  He seems to be the default cartoonist for Singapore government posters. From public toilets to public parks, if a government poster uses cartoons, they’re his work.
• The sub-head is “Precautions You Can Take” for “tremors.” Quick, what precautions does it recommend? OK, take a few minutes to read it. Now, what precautions does it recommend? I can’t tell, either.
• HDB apparently recommends you protect yourself from falling debris in an earthquake with an umbrella (middle right image). If not, then why is the woman holding an umbrella to protect herself from a falling plant?
• The BCA apparently wants you to think that cracks in buildings are caused by plants growing in walls (upper right image), and that you should paint designs around cracks you find in your building (lower left image). No? Then why is a man holding a sprout plucked from a crack, or painting leaves on cracks?
• I’m confident that SCDF does not recommend that only thin people get under a table in an earthquake. (middle left image) So why make fun of a grossly-obese person under a table?
• Hotline numbers? (lower right image) Five – five! – of them, in 10-point type. Am I supposed to remember them? Does the HDB or the BCA really want people to call their hotlines after an earthquake? There are 4.8 million people in Singapore. If 48,000 people – just one (1%) percent of them – call those numbers after an earthquake, they’ll be overwhelmed. Instead of phone numbers, I’d have listed one URL. Maybe the National Environment Agency’s web site www.nea.gov.sg
• The poster is published or endorsed (it doesn’t say which) by six (6) government agencies whose logos appear at the bottom: the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), the Singapore Police Force (SPF), the Building & Construction Authority (BCA), the Housing & Development Board (HDB), the National Environment Agency (NEA) and the Ministry of Information, Communication & the Arts (MICA). SCDF and SPF have their logos on it, which is disappointing.  But if the hapless designer of the poster had to get approval from all six agencies, no wonder it’s such a disaster.

Does the poster provide useful ‘precautions you can take’? No. Instead, the poster forces even a careful reader to wonder, ‘Should I take earthquake preparation seriously, because it sure looks like they don’t.’ Contrast the nonchalance of the poster with the views of seismologist Dr. Michael Spranger of insurer Munich Re (page 358), quoted in Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper in September 2008, that “What is certain is that our [Singapore's] buildings are not designed to withstand earthquakes.”

The poster doesn’t actually say an earthquake won’t happen, but failing to use the word “earthquake” and using puerile cartoons definitely minimizes both the risk and the importance of preparation, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine seeing a poster like this in Sichuan (China) or Aceh (Indonesia) or California – all places where they take earthquakes seriously.

Singapore is 500 kilometers (300 miles) from one of the most active earthquakes zones in the world, the south coast of Sumatra (Indonesia).  I’m from California. I grew up doing monthly ‘duck-and-cover’ drills under my desk at elementary school. I’ve been in plenty of earthquakes. They’re scary. I’m a big believer in preparation and training, and Singapore is woefully – disastrously – unconcerned and unprepared about earthquakes. I like to see any government’s earthquake-awareness money spent effectively.

When an earthquake or strong tremor does hit Singapore, I think SCDF and SPF and the BCA are going to have a hard time making the case that they tried seriously to warn citizens of the danger with this silly poster as evidence. Either you take the risk seriously or you don’t.

I’ll bet that someday those six agencies are going to wish they hadn’t put their logos on that poster.

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