Regions most at risk for great loss of life include those where earthquakes are relatively rare but powerful, and poor regions with lax, unenforced, or nonexistent seismic building codes. Prediction
Earthquake prediction is a branch of the science of seismology concerned with the specification of the time, location, and magnitude of future earthquakes within stated limits. Many methods have been developed for predicting the time and place in which earthquakes will occur. Despite considerable research efforts by seismologists, scientifically reproducible predictions cannot yet be made to a specific day or month. Forecasting
While forecasting is usually considered to be a type of prediction, earthquake forecasting is often differentiated from earthquake prediction. Earthquake forecasting is concerned with the probabilistic assessment of general earthquake hazard, including the frequency and magnitude of damaging earthquakes in a given area over years or decades. For well-understood faults the probability that a segment may rupture during the next few decades can be estimated.Earthquake warning systems have been developed that can provide regional notification of an earthquake in progress, but before the ground surface has begun to move, potentially allowing people within the systems range to seek shelter before the earthquakes impact is felt. Preparedness
The objective of earthquake engineering is to foresee the impact of earthquakes on buildings and other structures and to design such structures to minimize the risk of damage. Existing structures can be modified by seismic retrofitting to improve their resistance to earthquakes. Earthquake insurance can provide building owners with financial protection against losses resulting from earthquakes.
A particularly dangerous form of slow earthquake is the tsunami earthquake, observed where the relatively low felt intensities, caused by the slow propagation speed of some great earthquakes, fail to alert the population of the neighboring coast, as in the 1896 Sanriku earthquake. Co-seismic overpressuring and effect of pore pressure
During an earthquake, high temperatures can develop at the fault plane so increasing pore pressure consequently to vaporization of the ground water already contained within rock. In the coseismic phase, such increase can significantly affect slip evolution and speed and, furthermore, in the post-seismic phase it can control the Aftershock sequence  because, after the main event, pore pressure increase slowly propagates into the surrounding fracture network. From the point of view of the Mohr-Coulomb strength theory, an increase in fluid pressure reduces the normal stress acting on the fault plane that holds it in place, and fluids can exert a lubricating effect. As thermal overpressurization may provide positive feedback between slip and strength fall at the fault plane, a common opinion is that it may enhance the faulting process instability. After the mainshock, the pressure gradient between the fault plane and the neighboring rock causes a fluid flow which increases pore pressure in the surrounding fracture networks; such increase may trigger new faulting processes by reactivating adjacent faults, giving rise to aftershocks. Analogously, artificial pore pressure increase, by fluid injection in Earths crust, may induce seismicity. Tidal forces
Tides may induce some seismicity.