Safest place to be during an earthquake is nowhere near anything that might fall on you.
Seems to go without saying, really, but apparently newspapers don’t agree.
Orwell was just a few decades off.
I was in a 7.5 in Mexico City in 1957. We were walking home from a party at 1:30 am when I staggered. I said, “But I only had one drink.” My friend from San Diego looked around, saw lights flashing, and overhead wires swaying. We both ran out into the middle of the intersection way from the wires and the 2 story buildings and clung to each other to keep from falling down. Several blocks away a lone car was weaving down the road. It lasted 1 1/2 minutes and felt like being on a fast moving NY subway train. When I got home, one of my apartment mates said the living room chandeleir was hitting one side of the ceiling and then the other as she ran to join the maid under the massive dining room table. The huge, long Social Security building across the avenue had a 3 foot crack in it where it had been designed to split in case of earthquake. I don’t know about tunnels, but I think we did the best we could under the circumstances.