The Nation - News from Jan. 22, 1986

The use of sweeping new construction guidelines for seismic safety could help U.S. cities avoid the catastrophic earthquake damage that devastated Mexico City last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said. The agency announced completion of an extensive set of design provisions, the product of a decade of research, that will be offered as building code guidelines to local governments and the construction industry. The FEMA code figures safety requirements based on quake magnitude and probability for different regions of the country.