You talk to Japanese civil engineers and they tell you how to build earthquake-resistent tall buildings, which they have a lot of practice with. From http://fa

You talk to Japanese civil engineers and they tell you how to build earthquake-resistent tall buildings, which they have a lot of practice with. From http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=863 http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=863 , talking about the Kobe earthquake of 1995 (magnitude 7.2): "Sixty percent of those who died were over 60 years old. The reason for this is that they were mainly the one who lived in the older houses that collapsed. Few people died in new homes. Nearly all the buildings that killed people were built before the enactment of modern building codes in the 1970s and 80s. Many newer buildings were badly damaged but they didn’t collapse." "Kobe's modern buildings 'seemed to have performed very well,' a former Stanford engineering professor told Newsweek. 'There may have been one or two that have been damaged. But I haven't heard of any that fell.' Every building constructed according to the building codes established in 1981 was unscathed." I bet there are many, many structures currently standing in SF that would be more earthquake-safe if they were replaced with taller, higher-capacity, but better-engineered modern buildings.