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I am probably way off center on this one but it seems to me
from the last few earthquakes I have seen in California, much of the earthquake damage was caused by resulting fires, gas pipe breaks and so on rather than the earth movement.
Since California has upped it’s earthquake restrictions and construction requirements, hopefully even less damage will occur now - but some local jurisdictions are still allowing construction on threatened land. Even weirder - people are still buying properties on that land.
“Since California has upped it’s earthquake restrictions and construction requirements, hopefully even less damage will occur now”
The standards are all based on shaking and will ultimatly cause the buildings to be ripped apart because of the wave vertical movement moving through them.
There’s still a huge amount of older masonry buildings in both Southern and Northern California.
The real problem is that both Loma Prieta (distance from urban area) and Northridge (most energy directed away from LA) perhaps gave a false impression of how bad things will be.
Also, there were hundreds of buildings that LOOKED ok in Northridge that were later condemned due to structural damage - not every building is going to spectacularly collapse.