Engineer Explains - How Earthquake Proof are Modern Buildings?

How are modern buildings designed to survive earthquakes? What are they chances that they will collapse during an earthquake?

[rumble]

Reminds me of the earthquake in Turkey. Among all the rubble, only the engineering school stood. The politicians allowed builders to skirt building codes for years and it ended in huge tragedy.

[georgeg]

This philosophy kind of extends to structural engineering as a whole. What makes a structure good is that it shows visual signs of damage before the actual failure occurs. It is better to have enough time to react rather than the entire structure suddenly collapse.

[afek]

But unlike a car crash, which is an accident that will occur more or less in small amounts at all times, won't a substantial earthquake cause a massive overwhelming building shortage and construction bottlenecks for years to come?

shouldn't that be taken into account too somehow and provide a way that whole communities won't become communally homeless overnight?