The shaking stops. The room is quiet except for the car alarms outside and your own breathing. Here's the thing nobody tells you: the earthquake is over, but the dangerous part isn't. Most injuries in the hours after a quake don't come from the ground moving — they come from gas leaks, fires, falls on broken glass, bad cleanup decisions, and aftershocks catching people in exactly the wrong place.
This guide is the sequel to what to do during the shaking. It covers the first minutes, the first hours, and the first days after — in the order you'll actually need them.
Don't sprint. Seriously. The single most common post-quake injury is people bolting for the door and running straight into falling debris, broken glass, or a stairwell that's no longer sound. Give it a full sixty seconds.
First, expect aftershocks — they can start within seconds, and they can be strong enough to knock down what the mainshock weakened. Stay where you took cover until you're sure the shaking has truly stopped, then move carefully.
Second, check yourself, then others. Run through a quick inventory: head, neck, limbs. If someone is seriously injured, do not move them unless they're in immediate danger from fire or a collapsing structure — moving a person with a spinal injury can turn a survivable injury into a permanent one. Keep them still, keep them warm, and get help. For minor cuts and bruises, your earthquake kit first-aid supplies are the reason they exist. Shop first-aid kits on Amazon →
In the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the shaking destroyed buildings — but the fires that followed destroyed the city. In Kobe in 1995, fires broke out in more than 100 places within minutes. Gas lines rupture, pilot lights go out, stoves get knocked over, and electrical shorts spark. Fire is the number-one secondary hazard of every major earthquake.
The moment you can move safely, sniff. If you smell gas — that rotten-egg sulfur smell — act immediately:
For small, contained fires — a stovetop flare-up, a wastebasket — use a fire extinguisher if you have one and the fire is genuinely small. If the fire is spreading, don't be a hero. Get out, close doors behind you to slow it, and call for help from outside.
Treat every downed power line as live, even if it's not sparking. Stay at least 10 meters (about 30 feet) away and report it. Never touch a person or object that's in contact with a downed line.
Inside the house, unplug major appliances and electronics. When power is restored it often surges, and that surge fries whatever's plugged in. Leave one lamp on so you'll know when power returns. If you see frayed wiring, sparks, or smell burning insulation, flip the main breaker off — but only if the panel is dry and you can reach it without standing in water.
Check your water heater: a toppled heater can rupture gas and water lines at once, which is why seismic straps exist. If water lines are leaking, shut off the main water valve (usually near where the line enters the house or at the street meter). And if local authorities issue a boil-water notice, take it seriously — quakes crack water mains and let contaminants in.
There's no universal answer, but there are clear signals. Evacuate immediately if you smell gas, see fire you can't control, or see structural damage — cracks running diagonally across walls, a building that's visibly leaning, a chimney that's separated from the house, doors and windows that suddenly won't open or close (the frame has shifted).
If you evacuate a multi-story building, take the stairs — never the elevators. Elevators can stall between floors, and their shafts are vulnerable to damage you can't see. Bring your shoes, your phone, your keys, and your go-bag if it's within reach. Don't go back inside for belongings.
Stay put if the building looks sound and officials haven't ordered an evacuation. Wandering damaged streets exposes you to falling facades, broken glass, and unstable structures. If you're on the coast and the shaking was long or strong, though, don't wait for an official order — move to high ground immediately. Tsunamis don't wait for press conferences. Our explainer on tsunami warning systems covers what the alerts actually mean.
Once it's safe, walk the property slowly, outside first. Look at the foundation, the chimney, exterior walls, and where the house meets the ground. Inside, check each room for new cracks (hairline cracks in drywall are usually cosmetic; wide, jagged, or diagonal cracks across walls and ceilings are not), sagging ceilings, broken pipes, and shifted appliances.
Don't enter rooms with heavy structural damage, and don't assume a building is safe just because it "looks okay" — if anything feels wrong (new slopes in the floor, doors jammed shut), stay out and call a professional inspector. Many cities offer free post-quake safety inspections after major events.
Post-quake cleanup sends thousands of people to the emergency room every year, almost all of it avoidable. The rules are simple:
Pace yourself. Cleanup is a multi-day job, and exhaustion leads to exactly the careless mistakes that cause injuries. Drink water, eat, rest.
If the power's been out, the clock is ticking on your fridge. Perishable food — meat, dairy, leftovers — is safe for about 4 hours in an unopened refrigerator. After that, when in doubt, throw it out. A $15 bag of groceries is not worth food poisoning when hospitals are overwhelmed. Freezers hold longer: roughly 24–48 hours if kept closed and reasonably full.
For water: if authorities issue a boil-water advisory, bring water to a rolling boil for at least one minute (three minutes above 2,000 meters elevation). Your emergency water supply — one gallon per person per day — is there precisely for this. If you're unsure about tap water and have no advisory either way, bottled or boiled is the safe default for the first few days.
After a major quake, everyone picks up the phone at once, and the network chokes. Text messages use far less bandwidth than voice calls and will often go through when calls won't. Keep calls short or skip them entirely.
Designate an out-of-area contact — someone outside the quake zone — and have every family member check in with that one person. It's far easier for one person in another state to relay "everyone's okay" than for five people to reach each other through a congested local network. Mark yourself safe on social media if you use it; it stops the flood of worried calls that clog the network further.
And conserve your phone battery aggressively: dim the screen, close apps, switch to low-power mode. If the power's out for days, your phone is your radio, your map, your flashlight, and your lifeline. Shop portable battery banks on Amazon →
Knock on doors — especially for elderly neighbors, people who live alone, and anyone with mobility issues. In every major earthquake, the first rescues are almost always performed by neighbors, not professionals; official responders take hours to mobilize and triage. A quick check-in costs you five minutes and can save a life.
If your street organizes — sharing generators, pooling food, watching each other's homes — join in. Disasters are one of the few things that reliably make neighborhoods closer, and the communities that coordinate recover faster. Just keep it practical: who's got a chainsaw, who needs medication refrigerated, who has a working car.
Children take their emotional cues from you. If you're calm and matter-of-fact, they'll mostly be okay; if you're panicking, they will too. Answer their questions honestly but briefly — "the ground shook because the earth moved, we're safe now, here's what we're doing" — and get them back into routines as fast as possible. Normal mealtimes, normal bedtimes. Routine is the antidote to fear.
Let them help with age-appropriate cleanup tasks. Having a job turns helplessness into agency, which is exactly what kids need after something scary and uncontrollable.
Pets will be weird for a while — hiding, clingy, off their food, jumpy at small noises. That's normal and it passes. Keep dogs leashed outside (fences may be down, and familiar streets may have new hazards), keep cats indoors until things settle, and check that ID tags and microchip info are current in case anyone bolts during an aftershock. Watch for injuries you can't see: limping, flinching, or refusal to eat for more than a day warrants a vet visit.
Here's what the preparedness checklists leave out: for days or weeks after a significant quake, you might feel jumpy at every truck rumbling past, sleep badly, feel oddly weepy or irritable, or catch yourself scanning ceilings in every room you enter. This is a normal stress response, not weakness. Your nervous system got a very convincing demonstration that the ground — the most solid thing you know — can't be trusted, and it needs time to recalibrate.
What helps: talk about it, keep routines, limit the doomscrolling (replaying collapse footage keeps your brain in emergency mode), get physical activity, and sleep as normally as you can. What doesn't help: alcohol as a sleep aid, isolating yourself, or telling yourself you "should be over it by now."
If anxiety, nightmares, or intrusive thoughts persist beyond a month, or if they're interfering with work and relationships, talk to a professional. Post-disaster counseling is common, effective, and nothing to be embarrassed about — most communities offer free services after major events.
Return to evacuated buildings only when officials say it's safe — not when it "looks fine" from the street. Re-entry is when a lot of secondary injuries happen: people walking into unstable structures to grab belongings.
In the days that follow, restock what you used: refill the water, replace the batteries, replenish the first-aid kit, and note what was missing. Every earthquake is a free audit of your preparedness. The kit you wish you'd had is the kit you should build now — our earthquake kit guide walks through it item by item.
Finally, keep one eye on the aftershock forecast. Aftershocks decay over days to weeks, but a large aftershock days later can damage structures the mainshock weakened. Stay out of heavily damaged buildings entirely until they've been professionally assessed — the building that survived the mainshock isn't guaranteed to survive its aftershocks.
The ground will settle. The cleanup will end. And the next time it happens — because in quake country, there is always a next time — you'll know exactly what to do during the shaking and in every minute after.