In my understanding, OP is looking for the data of casualty of the earthquake except for the death by the crushed building in pre-modern period, correct?

One big factor of human damage in earthquake that OP might forget to mention is not the earthquake itself, but tsunami.

To give an example, one of the most famous historical earthquakes in world history, Lisbon Earthquake (1755) accompanied with the city fire and tsunami. On the other hand, it is unfortunately not so easy to distinguish different causes of human damage mentioned in contemporary texts.

AFAIK one of the earliest such records came from the early 18th century Japan.

Hoei Earthquake in 1707 (as for the basic information, please check Chesley et al. 2012) was one of the biggest (Mw 8.6-8.7) historical earthquakes in Japan, and the majority of human damage was located in Osaka, economic metropolis of Edo period Japan (estimated population in ca. 1700 was ca. 350,000 (Yata 2013: 161)), where tsunami surged along the canal and drown many people to death.

While recent studies rarely reach an agreement on the estimated figures of human damage (or which primary texts should be prioritized) (Nagao 2014, Yata 2013), both Nagao and Yata agree that tsunami killed more people than the crushed building.

Of 26 listed primary sources by Nagao, the estimated number of killed by crushes ranges from ca. 500 to 7,000, but those drawn by tsunami amount at least 7,000, and the majority allude to 10,000 or 12,000 (Nagao 2014: 164-66). On the other hand, One source (the statistic collected by the Shogunate) that Yata regards as the most trustworthy list the following casualties in Osaka: 3,537 households, 653 houses, 5,351 people crushed to death, 16,371 people drown to death (calculated on Oct. 10, 1707 - the earthquake itself had broken out on Oct. 04, 1707) (Yata 2013: 161).

Note that the estimated epicenter of Hoei Earthquake is more than a hundred kilometer away from Osaka itself, in the sea south to Japan.

So, I suppose these figures, though disputed, are enough to show that pre-modern earthquakes could sometimes kill many people by tsunami.

References:

• Chesley, C., LaFemina, P. C., Puskas, C., and Kobayashi, D. (2012). "The 1707 Mw8.7 Hoei earthquake triggered the largest historical eruption of Mt. Fuji," Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L24309, doi:10.1029/2012GL053868.
• Nagao, Takeshi. "Damage Figures from the 1707 Hoei Earthquake and Tsunami in Osaka City: Compilation and Comparison of Data from 26 Historical Documents." Rekishi Jishin (Historical Earthquake) 29 (2014): 163-71. (in Japanese, but with English summary)
• Nishiyama, Akihito & Komatsubara Taku."Hoei Jishin (1707) ni okeru Osaka deno Jishin Higai to sono Chiri teki Yoh-in (Earthquake Damage in Osaka during Hoei Earthquake (1707) and its Geographical Factors)." Kyoto Rekishi Saigai Kenkyu (Historical Disaster Studies of Kyoto), 10 (2009): 13-25. (only in Japanese)
• Yata, Toshifumi. "1707 Hoei Jishin to Osaka no Higai Su (Damage Figures in Osaka during Hoei Earthquake in 1707)." Annual Report of Research Institute for Natural Hazards and Disaster Recovery, Nigata Univ., 2 (2013): 161f. (only in Japanese)

Very late answer, but I hope to give some insight into addressing this question. Apart from studying reports and materials on disaster relief from various governmental and non-governmental organisations, What Is A Disaster (pdf) by EL Quarantelli et al and Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs by Joël Glasman are great books that may help unpack how your idea of "devastation" can be calculated.

So first, how can we determine the devastation of an earthquake? Measures can include: deaths, serious injuries, light injuries, homes destroyed, homes damaged, possessions destroyed, crops/livestock damaged, days of economic production disrupted, transport cost increases, psychological distress, crime increases, disease increases, roads damaged... These also have varying extents of being significant, representative, quantifiable, and so on. For example, deaths are probably most significant as human life is important to us all, but may be more difficult to count and categorise than the destruction of buildings. It's easier to record down which buildings have been turned into piles of rubble than to find and locate smaller humans trapped in those piles of rubble. Should we also count deaths that arise from aftershocks, inadequate relief aid, disease, and serious injuries?

I think your question relies on an assumption that taller buildings are more prone to toppling and collapsing, killing people and damaging objects, so post-industrial economies with cities of skyscrapers may be more devastated by earthquakes than pre-industrial societies that primarily have low-rise buildings. The problem with this is that we cannot generalise such a complex topic with a monocausal explanation. Not all societies from a similar period or with a similar economic development may suffer from earthquakes equally, so even if Country A from the 1900s had more damaging earthquakes than Country B from the 900s, Country C from the 600s may have had even more damaging earthquakes than both Country D from the modern day and said Country A!

The assumption is unlikely to be reliable in its accuracy anyway, even comparing between modern societies that have differing prevalences of taller buildings. For example, the 1994 Northridge earthquake caused much less deaths and injuries than the 1993 Latur earthquake. Areas affected by the latter are more likely to be lower-rise in general than the former.

A few other factors that can affect this devastation include:

• Population of affected areas, as more people nearer the earthquake means that more people can get killed or injured, and these people will use houses and buildings
• Depth and distance of the earthquake, as deeper and farther earthquakes will lose more energy before reaching the affected areas
• Intensity and duration of the earthquake, which will of course affect the amount of shaking
• Secondary natural disasters, such as tsunamis (as covered in the earlier comment), aftershocks, and landslides
• Extent of early warning, as faster detection and identification can lead to earlier mitigative actions by governments and NGOs, such as organising evacuation orders and medical services
• Extent of mitigative actions taken, as above and also including other humanitarian operations regarding nutrition, WASH, search and rescue, shelter, and more (again, damage is not just from the earthquake itself)
• Extent of earthquake preparations, such as communication infrastructure (to inform people of an upcoming earthquake) and public education (to teach people how to evacuate and improve their safety)
• Quality of buildings and infrastructure, as a tall building with well-designed safety measures and strong engineering (e.g. in East Asian skyscrapers) can still be less likely to collapse (and perhaps even offer secure places to evacuate to) than a two-storey wooden house built on topsoil
• Geography of affected areas, which complements the above, such as skyscraper foundations anchored to bedrock being less vulnerable than that wooden house on a coastal hillside

There's much more to consider here of course! Nevertheless I think in general, human developments over time have made experiencing earthquakes much safer.

Edit: added a factor