Earthquakes can turn thousands of structures into rubble in a few minutes, which means, the quality of houses and other buildings, can actually either help mitigate or contribute to the overall impact. If buildings are not engineered properly in the design phase, they will be far more likely to fail during an earthquake, potentially leading to more fatalities or injuries.

Sabine Kast is the Executive Director, Miyamoto Global Disaster Relief, a group that applies engineering expertise to help at-risk and disaster affected communities around the world. Its primary focus is on seismically upgrading schools to safeguard the lives of the most vulnerable children; however, it also works to preserve cultural heritage and historic structures due to the fact that an entire history of a culture can be lost in a few seconds of an earthquake. In this episode we speak with Sabine about their ongoing work, as well as their current efforts in Haiti