How safe are our buildings if an earthquake strikes Kenya?

Devastation caused by the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday. [Courtesy, BBC]

Some 21,000 human beings left our world in seconds. The 7.5 Richter Turkey-Syria earthquakes are some of the worst in our generation.

As multi-national teams scramble to rescue victims and families grieve and bury their loved ones, hard questions are beginning to be asked. Some 6,000 kilometres away, perhaps we can pause in honour of the dead, and ask a few domestic questions too. Globally, there are less than 20 earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.0 a year. Two decades ago, the world watched in horror as a magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed 20,000 people in Japan and killed 220,000 Haitians in Port-au-Prince. Monday's disaster has already surpassed Turkiye's last 1999 earthquake which killed 18,000 people.