I think one big difference is in the United States most schools perform regular emergency drills for such events as tornadoes, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes etc. Teachers and students practice these evacuations/relocations on a regular basis to know what to do in case of a disaster.
It sounds like in the earthquake in China, the teachers had no plan, no idea what to do. Each teacher had to make split second decisions on their own: one teacher ran away from his students, another teacher laid on top of his students and saved them from being crushed to death.
I think more children would have survived if the teachers had been trained on what to do in case of this kind of emergency.
Yes, your comment made me think deeper of my own undestanding of this teacher and his mis-behavior.
He’s no wrong as a personal, naturally. But when he’s blamed for his professional misconduct, we should put more attention on why he didn’t acquire sufficient and propoer training to handle himself and manage his pupils. That’s because the authority and administration didn’t give enough attention to staff and student safty and, then, didn’t provide training to the faculty and their student.
That’s not a problem to a single runner, but for the administration, in long term view.
This is to add to what Tamar1973 stated in post #13. Schools here tend to focus on potential dangers that are more common in a given area of the country. For example, when I was young lad, I lived in a part of the US prone to tornadoes and hurricanes. Thus, the schools held tornado and hurricane drills in addition to the customary fire drills. In areas that are prone to earthquakes, schools have earthquake drills in addition fire drills.