Kuala Lampur, Aug. 29 -- Over the past few days, Johor and her neighbouring states have been shaken by a few earthquakes. Understandably, people are concerned.

Earthquakes are an interesting natural phenomenon. Unfortunately, they are unpredictable and strong earthquakes can cause significant physical and massive economic damage. I won't get into why earthquakes happen; but I believe there is a need to for Malaysians to better understand earthquake risks and types of damage.

There are two sides to an earthquake - the seismic event and the response to that event. The event and response are two very different fields of science.

The seismic event is when energy is released by the rupture of a fault in the tectonic plate. The science behin...