Call For Malaysia To Establish Earthquake Disaster Centre

JOHOR BAHARU (Johor, Malaysia), June 11 (Bernama) -- Malaysia should consider setting up a disaster centre, which would serve to observe and analyse early signs of earthquake disasters in the future, a researcher said Wednesday. Head of the Geo-engineering and Geophysical Disasters research group at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Assoc Prof Dr Edy Tonnizam Mohamad said the lack of a dedicated centre to integrate efforts currently, made it difficult for Malaysia to prepare the country and the people to face such disasters. "In the earthquake at Ranau recently, we found those who died were Mount Kinabalu climbers. "If these early signs could be studied and developed, it can most certainly help us face earthquakes in the future," he told a press conference at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, here Wednesday. Edy said Malaysia would not have a problem setting up the centre, as it already had a number of experts who could be placed there. -- BERNAMA