Actually, there are building codes in many developing countries, including India, but enforcing them is another matter. A lot can be done by educating the small-time builder in how to make houses safer. That means missions out into the countryside and it would all work a lot better with more support from Western countries. So much is spent on post-disaster aid and reconstruction; if more were spent on mitigation the costs of picking up the pieces wouldn't be so high.

And there have been successes - the death toll was relatively low in Erzincan in 1992 where local builders did know how to make good houses, and were part of the community, not crooked outsiders.

I don't buy the argument that if you save lives people will just die of some other thing. You could justify all sorts of evil that way.