The performance of engineered buildings in Kobe is very significant from the U.S. perspective.  That is due to the similarity in structural systems used in the US and Japan since WWII.  Since most of the engineered buildings in the heavily shaken area were constructed in the past several decades using concrete and steel systems familiar to US engineers, the earthquake provided a wealth of relevant information on how our own building stock may perform.  These images contain examples of concrete frame and shear wall buildings, and steel moment braced frame buildings.