Building a safer Malaysia: ensuring structural resilience against earthquake risks / Noor Syafeekha Mohamad Sakdun, Assoc. Prof. Ts. Dr. Kay Dora Abd Ghani and Ts. Dr. Mohd Ikmal Fazlan Rozli @ Rosli

Malaysia experiences the impact of both regional and local earthquakes. Although Malaysia is known to be a country with low seismicity, it is located on the stable Sunda plate, part of the Eurasian plate, near the famous Pacific Ring of Fire tectonic belt where most of the earthquakes occur in this zone. An earthquake occurs when tectonic plates beneath the Earth's surface move against each other along a fault line. This movement releases energy in seismic waves that spread outward from the point of origin called the "focus". The epicenter is the point on the Earth's surface directly above the focus.