On Wednesday a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck western Guatemala killing 48, injuring 150, and leaving 60,000 people throughout the country without power. This is the largest earthquake to hit Guatemala since 1976, where 23,000 people were killed. The earthquake caused a sand quarry in San Marcos, one of the worst hit cities, to collapse and kill 7 people. In a more developed country there are work safety laws that prohibit unsafe labor practices and force companies to make the job as safe as possible. The 7 people killed in the sand quarry were just out digging into the side of the earth with no protection. There isn't much protection you can provide against an earthquake, but i imagine there is something you can implement to reduce the risk of quarry collapses.
After the main shock of the earthquake, the Guatemalan government issued alerts and evacuations from tall buildings in case of powerful aftershocks. Using scientific knowledge, the government was able to make the public aware of potentially powerful aftershocks. Taking this engineering paradigm approach of forecasting hazardous may have been saved many lives.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/11/201211805947793553.html
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/world/americas/guatemala-earthquake/index.html
