I was surveying in downtown LA in the summer of 1971 and the recent nothing-much quake had left bricks all over sidewalks and quite a few older buildings were boarded up. Construction standards have improved since [1] but quake-tolerant building practices are a field in themselves and by no means mature. If nothing else they’re a nasty computational problem to simulate, and then you have to inspect for even tiny variations from the approved design.
[1] Spare me the “Well, DUH!,” please.
