How to survive a zombie apocalypse? Scientists say you should head for the hills (Bukit Timah, anyone?)

Wondering what you should do in a zombie apocalypse? Want more reliable information than what television series The Walking Dead can provide?

Don't worry, a bunch of scientists at Cornell University have got you covered.

Their advice? Head for rural high ground like hilly or mountainous regions to maximise your chance of surviving.

Seeing as we have only one hill, we predict Bukit Timah will get very crowded.

Using extremely advance mathematics, the scientists from the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics have predicted that cities would fall quickly, but that it would take weeks for a zombie plague to penetrate rural areas.

Does the Kranji countryside count as rural?

If it doesn't your next best bet would be one of our reservoirs. Upper Peirce, anyone? It's 6ha of greenery and watering holes, after all.

Mr Alex Alemi, one of four graduate students who undertook the research, said that in pop culture, "if there is a zombie outbreak, it is usually assumed to affect all areas at the same time".

"But in our attempt to model zombies somewhat realistically, it doesn’t seem like this is how it would actually go down."

Based on the team’s simulation, densely populated and highly urbanised areas would be the first to succumb to the plague.

Much of America would have fallen after four weeks, but it would take "a very long time" for zombies to reach the most remote corners of the nation.

"Even four months in, remote areas of Montana and Nevada (would) remain zombie-free," said the study, which is titled You Can Run, You Can Hide: The Epidemiology And Statistical Mechanics Of Zombies.

Would any part of Singapore still be zombie-free at that point? We doubt it.

But if there were such a place, we think it definitely would be Pulau Ubin.

If the Japanese were able to outmaneuver the British with bicycle infantries during World War II, out-cycling a zombie on the island shouldn't be too difficult.

The study – which mimics the way scientists forecast the spread of a real epidemic – assumes an element of randomness in the way the zombie apocalypse would unfold.

It also doesn’t take into account a military response.

The Pentagon has one such plan.

The US Centers for Disease Control also hosts a website called Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse with practical advice on how to prepare for such an attack.

We're not sure how much use that will be, considering the Cornell researchers concluded that, in the long term, when zombies attack, "we are largely doomed".

Source: The Star