Kobe Earthquake 1995

…

…designs i.e. strengthen the foundations of buildings and change the wooden houses into strong concrete ones. Also better emergency preparedness, e.g. after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 an entirely independent water system for fire fighting, with its own reservoirs was installed. Safer building standards should also be recognised. However, you cannot just prevent an earthquake from occurring, so maybe if Japan adopted some of these ideas damage could be restricted in the future.