Earthquakes have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the last 100 years and improvements in technology have only slightly reduced the death toll.
29 October 2008

At least 160 people are killed in the Pakistani province of Balochistan after an earthquake of 6.4 magnitude struck 70km (45 miles) north of Quetta.
12 May 2008:

Up to 87,000 people are killed or missing and as many as 370,000 injured by an earthquake in just one county in China's south-western Sichuan province.
The tremor, measuring 7.8, struck 92km (57 miles) from the provincial capital Chengdu during the early afternoon....