I agree with Petra on the matter - as to the question of wouldn't you want to spend $100,000 on a preogram to save $100 Billion in damage - the damage is mostly structure and knowing when a quake will occur won't help that at all.

We heard a talk given by Kerry Sieh which had an very interesting idea - if we just retrofit 1% of structures per year, then in 100 years we will be safe from earthquake damage. We have the technology to build structures to withstand quakes (as long as we don't straddle a fault).

On the other hand - my experience in China shows me that there are other countries who don't seem to care about building codes or worrying about such things as an earthquake safe structure. I guess it would cost more money to build a safe building than they have. What re-bar does exist in a building is extracted when the building is demolished (by hand with sledge hammers and chisels) so it can be re-used in the next structure.

In places like Iran that just had a quake that demolished villages of mud and brick homes do you think they are going to rebuild any differently? I doubt it - they'll do it again and hope they don't have another quake. In China we saw repairs on brick buildings that came down in the 1996 quake - they just put the brick back up and patched the structures....

I did carry my handy-dandy whistle with me in China!

Canie