The effect of the latest Sumatra earthquake to Malaysian Peninsular

Abstract

Although the Malaysian Peninsular is located relatively faraway from the seismic source zone of Sumatra but the nearest distance of earthquake epicenter from Malaysia is approximately 350 km. Tremors due to Sumatran earthquakes have been reported several times. The newest data from the Malaysian Meteorological Service informed that the newest earthquake near Sumatra on 2 November 2002 had caused tremor in several cities in the Malaysian Peninsular such as Penang, Port Klang, Selangor and Old Klang, Selangor. The tremor had caused panic among residents of the high-rise buildings in Penang and thousands were running out of their buildings. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of the Sumatran Earthquake to the Malaysian Peninsular. This report includes the following items: 1) tectonic setting of Sumatra, 2) location, mechanism, and size of recent earthquake, and 3) analysis of ground acceleration at bedrock for Penang and Kuala Lumpur using several appropriate attenuation relationships. Seismic analysis is performed in order to obtain Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) at bedrock of Penang and Kuala Lumpur. Analysis is carried out using deterministic method and using attenuation relationships proposed by Youngs (1997) Atkinson and Boore (1997) and Petersen (2002). Comparison study using those three attenuation functions is also conducted in order to evaluate the effect of selection attenuation function at site location