Earthquakes-closer to home.

My son who is sitting for his final International Baccalaureate exams,suddenly texted messages to me, his Dad and sisters tonight, 'Did you feel the earthquake tonight?'It was about 10.40 pm.I immediately called him and was told that the library where he was studying, suddenly shook.The window panes creaked loudly.He and his friends were all scared and ran out of the library. I consoled him that an earthquake must have happened in Sumatra and I'll check in the internet for details.By the way, a small earthquake the day before had been felt in Tawau, Sabah on the Borneo island.
Sure enough my check on the USGS(United States Geological Survey)site had spotted an earthquake 50 km (30 miles) E of Sibolga, Sumatra, Indonesia(210 km (130 miles) SSE of Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia or 310 km (195 miles) WSW of KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia).The earthquake was measured 6.1 on the Richter scale occured at 9.26pm local time or 10.26pm Malaysian time.I checked again later and there was another tremor at 9.49pm at 5.1 magnitude.I told my son not to worry of any more tremors tonight.He has to get enough sleep as tomorrow he has to sit for the Physics paper.
By this time the local tv stations have started to flash news of the latest earthquake in Sumatra.

As I write this post,another earthquake has hit Papua new Guinea at magnitude 5.2.
It is estimated by USGS that there are 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year. 100,000 of those can be felt, and 100 of them cause damage.

After seeing the aftermath of the May 12 quake in Sichuan, China and the publicity it has generated, I guess we should be grateful that our country is not in the line of epicentres of earthquakes even though we may feel the shocks.However are we prepared,if the tectonic plates were to shift closer to home?Are we prepared for tsunamis like the one hitting Penang and Kedah on December 26, 2004? Are we prepared to lose everything?

I pray this does not happen.At least not in my lifetime.