Tsunami risk assessment: How safe is Malaysia?

The effetiveness of vegetation as coastal protection in front of coastal area was evidenced during the Indian Ocean Tsunami on 26th December 2004. Sufficiency of mangrove forest as natural protection against tsunami along Malaysia's coastline is thus of a great concer. This paper presents the assessment of the overall trend of tsunami occurrence and highlight the level of tsunami exposure for Malaysia in reducing the impact from wave. Analysis of global tsunami and earthquake data shows that Malaysia in reducing the impact from wave. Analysis of global tsunami and earthquake data shows that Malayisa is ptentially vulnerable to future tsunami impact. Malaysia is located in the buffer zone of the Ring of Fire and still susceptible to the influence from tsunami risk with epicenters within the neighboring countries. USGS database shows an increasing occurrence of earthquake in Sabah with magnitude ranges from MW 4.2 to MW 6.0, which becoming a raising concern as MW 6.5 may trigger tsunami. Malayisa had a varying width of mangrove forest distribution which is hoped to protect the coastal area. However, parts of the mangrove areas are reducing, either due to human activites or as affected by other environmental factors. Malaysia's experience demonstrated how mangrove had plyed as important protection buffer. With the increasing trend of threat and decreaing mangrove belt, Malaysia is potentially exposed to such servere wave impacts. Implementation of optimum replanting cheme is inevitable to ensure acceptable level of protection along the coastline of Malaysia.