Difference between real-life escape panic and mimic exercises in simulated situation with implications to the statistical physics models of emergency evacuation: The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake

In constraining the statistical physics models of emergency evacuation, difference between real-life escape panic and simulated experiment is one of the key issues. We collected and analyzed some of the video recordings of the May 12, 2008, Wenchuan magnitude 8.0 earthquake in southwest China. These video cameras were originally deployed for security purposes, and the earthquake scene records are available from the internet. Analyzing one outdoor scene and three indoor scenes, it is observed that the relation between the arrival time and the order of the person arriving shows a nonlinear variation, which is different from simulated exercises in which this relation appears linear.

► Collection and analysis of civilian videos recording earthquake emergency. ► Rare samples of real-life disaster evacuation. ► Different from mimic experiments. ► Potentially useful for constraining the statistical physics models of escape panic.