Muawiyah, I did forget to tell him about bolting everything together, especially the house to the foundation. Diagonals, which we New Englanders call wind-braces, are also crucial. Block walls have to have rebar passing through every course, and through the footing. Would certainly have saved many lives in Haiti.
Lost a house in '94 in Santa Monica. It looked perfect, and not a thing inside even broke, but ... you guessed it ... the ground underneath began drifting and six months later the place started wracking and had to be condemned.
Reckon I didn't get it to the house junkyard fast enough!
In the older parts of town, some big old houses literally jumped off their foundations, and a kid was killed when an old-time brick chimney collapsed into her room.
In Iran people die when their tile roofs crash through their mud brick homes.