Earthquakes send destructive waves thru the Earth, which cause huge damage to civilizations. Many structure, which sit on unstable ground get the worst of it. These structures, which are often built using non-Earthquake proof materials and designs will fail and collapse on their occupants.
In the Pakistan quake of 2005 over 80,000 died. This was a combination of factors, which included building a city on shaky ground and building non-re-enforced structures. There may be a way to prevent such massive death and destruction to known Earthquake prone areas using tricks of physics. How so you ask?
Well, what if we can stop the S-Waves or surface waves caused by earthquakes by building walls underground which would reflect the waves? By having flexible walls against hard rock or solid wall structures going down let