The largest earthquake in Japan's

The largest earthquake in Japan's:  Why are not more buildings collapsed due to earthquake engineers in Japan are willing to bend but not break? This story was originally included in the PRI here and now. To learn more, listen to the audio above. Earthquakes are common in Japan that are in much of the rest of the world. So engineers have spent a lot of time thinking about how the buildings collapsed during the earthquake. This may be one reason why the recent earthquake in Japan was not even worse. "In many places in the world where you do not have earthquakes, people make a very strong and sustainable wind and weather," director Stephen Mahin Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, said that the PRI is here and now. "But they are structured so that if they bend, breaks like a piece of chalk. So I'm pretty stiff and strong, but fragile." In Japan and in California, engineers have begun to build structures that are difficult. Mahin describes it as a clip: "You can bend it, and at some point will, in a sense, but does not break. And you can bend and will continue in this way move. "" The idea is to allow the power structure, but not break, "Mahin said. That the design is causing many buildings to shake very violently but not fall Mahin said." The tall buildings in the specific domain return the very aggressive and frightening to understand "Despite the magnitude of the earthquake in Japan, or what some call a" megaquake "Mahin said:" It seems that most of the structures were able to pass through the earthquake. "Some of that can be attributed to this flexibility is designed into the buildings." Many of these ideas are fully developed within two or three decades, "said Mahin. Some of the older concrete buildings in Japan are likely at risk. But the Japanese government has taken steps to modernize the old buildings to make them more resistant to earthquakes. California has adopted similar measures.