Honestly, if I was stuck in some building after an earthquake, I think the only way my day could get worse was if I was then crawled upon by cyborg roaches.
It cracks me up how that is the go to 'application' for all robots, drones and swarm-bots. It is used so often it has become a cliche.
I think interest in that application is partly driven by a DARPA competition for disaster-response robotics: http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/
Well, what else can you do with a bionic cockroach?
An organic competitor to the Roomba?
Strap spy equipment and bio/chemical weapons to them.
It was extremely apropos for a little while after Fukushima, especially because the bots that were sent into the reactors were insufficient.
Yeah, somehow I imagine the likely use case being more scoping out uncollapsed buildings before they experience an... anthropogenic "earthquake".