NU Online News Service, March 23, 3:01 p.m.EDT

Improved building standards spared Mexico more damage and deathsfrom this week's magnitude 7.4 earthquake—and U.S. builders cantake a lesson from this event, one insurance association says.

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)says the augmented building codes “played a significant role inlimiting property damage and saving lives.”

The IBHS compared the most recent earthquake to the extensivedamage from the 1985 earthquake of magnitude 8.0 that shook MexicoCity.

Buildings were poorly built in Mexico in 1985, the IBHS notes,but officials there have since dramatically revamped building codesand enforcement of regulations, resulting in strongerbuildings.

“Mexico has taught the world a valuable lesson—that strong,well-enforced building codes can, and do, save lives and reduceproperty damage,” Julie Rochman, president and CEO of IBHS,says in a statement. “Now, we call on officials here in the UnitedStates to learn from Mexico and take steps to enact strong,statewide building codes that will protect citizens and preservehomes and businesses.”

Wanda Edwards, director of code development for the IBHS,tells NU Online News Service that the concern isespecially acute in the New Madrid fault line states in theSouth—the site of gigantic earthquakes in1811-1812 that are estimated to have been higher than magnitude7.0.

Some states do not have a statewide building code, which meansbuilding construction can take place without standards or codeenforcement.

Edwards says the Mexico earthquake should signal togovernment officials the life-saving value of stringent buildingcodes. This gives insurers more ammunition to urge public officialsto institute statewide building codes, she adds.

“The danger of seismic activity is that you don't have theability to evacuate before the event as you do with hurricanes,”says Edwards. “There's no warning.”

The 1985 quake destroyed 400 buildings and damaged thousands,taking the lives of 10,000 people.

Last Tuesday's earthquake that struck 200 miles south-southeast ofMexico City caused 60 homes to collapse and damaged about 800 morehomes, the Associated Press reports.

Up until Wednesday, there were reports of injuries but nodeaths. The Associated Press says two people diedThursday.

AP reports that Salvador Cruz Castro, mayor of theCuajinicuilapa municipality in Guerrero state, says one of thevictims died from injuries caused by a wall falling on him and theother died of complications from a heart attack suffered during thequake.

A moderate magnitude 5.2 shake rattled central Mexico onThursday, one of a number of aftershocks that have left peoplenervous and office workers evacuating office buildings, saysAP.

As the earthquake struck Tuesday, one of the American visitorsthere at the time of the earthquake was Malia Obama, daughter ofPresident Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. She was there on aschool trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, not far from the earthquake'sepicenter.

Malia and her fellow classmates were not injured, according to AP.