We cannot stop the inevitable, mother nature molds itself in an attempt to reform, rebuild and renew. Earthquakes serves as a reminder that humans, and animals of all shapes and sizes are vulnerable to the unknown.

Billions of people live in settlements that cannot withstand quakes. But engineers have found that houses can be built cheaply using straw, adobe, and old tyres. In cities such as Los Angeles and Tokyo, earthquake resistant buildings are mandatory. Concrete walls are reinforced with steel and some buildings even rest on shock absorbers. This change greatly saved thousands of lives when an 8.8 magnitude quake hit Chile in 2010. But in the same year, 222 500 fatalities and a million homeless people in the less developed Haiti brought about a wake up call: "that the devastation in Haiti would not have happened in a developed country," say engineer Maricial Blondet of the Catholic University of Peru, in Lima.

Yet, this need not happen anywhere because cheaper solutions exists. 

Since 1970, Blondet has been brainstorming on ideas when 70 000 fatalities hit Peru. He came to the conclusion that 70 000 whom had died in the Peru earthquake had houses traditionally made by cheap, sun-dried brick -called adobe- which overtime became brittle and consequently cracked instantly and crumbled around them.

Blondet and his research team have found that existing adobe walls can be reinforced with strong plastic mesh, installed under plaster. Such walls will crack, but not collapse allowing people to escape. This technique could also be used in Haiti. In India, engineers successfully tested a concrete house reinforced with bamboo. John van de Lindy of Colorado State University designed a house model for Indonesia that rests on old tyres filled with bags of  sand as shockabsorbers. All this costs much, much less!

Earthquakes are predictable, but being unable to save lives that fall victim to poorly structured houses is still a major blow to human advances and technologies. Nevertheless, lives can be saved. Indeed, first world countries don't face such dilemmas as grave as the third world countries, hence the need for cheaper materials and out-of-the-box methods to ensure safer settlements for developing countries.