“When a 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted southwestern Japan last week, its force mirrored the kind of seismic shocks capable of flattening cities and claiming hundreds or even thousands of lives.

Yet across the island of Kyushu, the violent shaking destroyed or heavily damaged just a few hundred buildings. One week after the quake, the death toll was 38…

'We see that there are huge differences in the number of casualties,' said Katsuichiro Goda, a professor of earthquake engineering at Western University in Canada. Mr. Goda, who conducted field reconnaissance in Kumamoto after the 2016 quakes, credits much of that difference to how the prefecture has rebuilt over the past decade, including spending tens of billions of dollars on earthquake proofing.”

From New York Times.