architectural guidelines

It's heartbreaking to watch the folks killed, wounded and displaced by the earthquake in the Pacific Ocean. The fury of nature mostly focused on Japan. Surprisingly the damage was not as much as expected in Tokyo. The big city was rattled, nevertheless, but relatively unscathed compared to the lesser known towns and villages. the casualties would have been unthinkably large had the buildings buckled in Tokyo - one of the cities in the world with highest population densities.

How did Tokyo manage to evade the inevitable? Someone twitted - Millions saved in Japan by good engineering and government building code. How profound. Not to belittle the unfathomable suffering of the victims, I couldn't help but think about the parallel to my own profession.