Sabah has witnessed an increasingly low to moderate number of seismic activities throughout the years due to active Mensaban and Lobou-Lobou faults lines. Vulnerability level of older buildings in Sabah, designed and built on the basis of older codes of practice poses a significant threat to life safety and structural capacities of the existing buildings. This paper presents a framework of preliminary seismic vulnerability assessment of existing buildings in Kota Kinabalu. Building stocks include major government buildings and facilities, residential, educational, institutional, business as well as public buildings. The objective of this study is to evaluate and determine the vulnerability of existing buildings in seven major areas near Kota Kinabalu district using Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) scoring method based on FEMA154 (2002). The rapid visual score indicates that from the total two-hundredth-fifty (250) buildings assessed, (60.4%) are categorized as unsafe buildings and are strongly recommended for further evaluation and detailed analysis whereby modelling of structure is necessary.

Previously, damaging earthquakes were fortunately rare in Malaysia. However, after Sumatera-Andaman earthquake on 26 December 2004 affected Peninsular Malaysia causing deaths, injuries and loss of property. Furthermore, some of the local earthquake that had occurred in Malaysia are probably due to the reactivations of ancient inactive fault due to increasing seismic activities in and around Malaysia. On 5th June 2015, Malaysia experienced a devastating earthquake with magnitude Mw 6.0 in Ranau results in 18 fatalities and affected 61 buildings. Mostly, the fatalities and injuries persistent during an earthquake is caused by structural failures which not include the seismic action into design. Reinforced concrete hostel building in school area will act as a temporary shelter for refuge during the disaster and until it dwindles. Although Malaysia is located on a stable plate and far from the Pacific Ring of Fire, it is essential to consider seismic practice, especially when dealing with cost. Therefore, this paper presents the influence of seismic consideration on cost of material and the factors which influencing the cost by implementing the soil factor, S as proposed by National Annex to Eurocode 8. A typical two storey reinforced concrete hostel building has been generated as basic model. A total of four soil type namely soil type B, C, D and E and five seismicity level has been taken into account where the value of reference peak ground acceleration, agR = 0.04g, 0.06g, 0.07g, 0.12g & 0.16g. Overall, this research work had been conducted based on 3 phases. Based on result, the cost of structural works for the whole building increases around 1% to 12% depend on soil type and level of seismicity.

A series of Indonesian earthquakes, especially from Sumatra caused vibration on buildings in Peninsular Malaysia like Kuala Lumpur and Penang Island. In East Malaysia, Sabah state has been classified as a region with active local seismic fault. A moderate earthquake with M w 6.1 was occurred in Ranau on 5 th June 2015 and caused damage on buildings either the structural or non-structural members. Hence, the implementation of seismic design on new buildings is important to ensure public safety. However, such action has its own pro and contra especially when dealing with cost. Therefore, current research work presents the influence of seismic design consideration on the increment of cost for steel reinforcement. For that purpose, a four storey reinforced concrete school building was generated and used as basic model for analysis, design, and taking off. Two level of seismicity representing by the reference peak ground acceleration, α gR equal to 0.07g and 0.10g has been taken into account in the structural analysis and seismic design process. Besides, three soil type namely as soil type A, soil type C, and soil type E also has been considered as variable parameter. Based on result, total steel tonnage in beams for models considering seismic design increases around 14% to 119% higher than the model without seismic design. For columns, the increment is around 13% to 155%. Generally, total cost of steel used as for concrete reinforcement of the whole structure increases around 13% to 131% depending on the level of seismicity and soil type.

Tropical country like Malaysia is rich with residual soil and nurtured with high rainfall amount on average 2,550 mm per year. From 2009 until 2018, there are many landslide events reported in the news at Ranau, Sabah and Canada Hill Miri, Sarawak that occurred during rainy season and the landslide recurs within same location over the years. The objective of this study is to determine the relationship of landslide events with geological condition and rainfall at Ranau, Sabah and Canada Hill Miri, Sarawak. Historical landslide data were obtained from local news, previous researchers, and local authorities. Integrated review was conducted to meet the objective. In summary, both areas are prone to landslide due to the high average amount rainfall recorded and the geological properties that are susceptible to landslide occurrence namely shale interbedded with sandstone. Sandstone and shale contact are easily accessible by water weaken the contact surface lead to landslides incidents. Besides, Shale classified as highly plastic soil due to high amount of clay. Clay soil depends on its matric suction to sustain its strength towards sliding. Thus, increasing of pore pressure from rain infiltration reduce the matric suction and eventually reduce the shear strength. Ranau is located at seismically active area compare to Miri and other locations in Sabah crossing Lobou-Lobou fault, Mensaban fault and Mesilou fault. Theoretically, slope instability due to earthquake happened because the cementation of soil may be broken and lead to lesser roughness between soil surfaces resulting in reduction of internal friction angle and cohesion of soil. HIGHLIGHTS Rainfall-induced landslides are the common landslides phenomenon worldwide including East Malaysia. However, due to the high number of seismic activity, Earthquake-induced landslides should not be neglected as one of slope failure phenomena in East Malaysia Combinations of both Rainfall and Earthquake are required to be investigated due to the presence of both landslide triggering factors from historical data at East Malaysia GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

This paper has classified nine attenuation laws derived for subduction interface earthquakes through a comparative study based on the peak ground accelerations (PGAs) recorded in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. The goal of classification was to identify the attenuation laws that were the most compatible with the region. The PGAs predicted by the relations provided by Nabilah and Balendra (Earthq Eng 16:1076-1094 and Zhao et al. (Bull Seismol Soc Am 96:898-913, 2006) were found to correlate well with the recorded PGAs. The maximum credible hazard in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore was obtained by calculating the acceleration response spectra caused by three great Sumatran megathrust earthquakes (the worst possible earthquake scenarios) using Zhao et al. spectral attenuation law. Current building code in the region requires that buildings should be capable of resisting a notional ultimate lateral design load equals to 1.5 % of the characteristic dead weight, simultaneously applied at each floor (i.e., the minimum design level of buildings equals to *0.15 m/s 2 ). The results show that the risk level for structures of the two cities with natural period T n = 1-1.5 s corresponding to 10-and 15-story buildings located on hard soil sites [National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) site class C] is high as the demand spectrum due to a worst possible earthquake scenario with moment magnitude (M W ) 9.5 and an epicentral distance (R epi ) of 600 km from Singapore was noticeably higher than their design level. The results of the present study are & A. Adnan azlanadnan@utm.my A. V. Shoushtari vsabdollah3@live.utm.my M. Zare mzare@iiees.ac.ir N. S. H. Harith applicable in seismic hazard assessment projects in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore.The most interesting conclusion from the earthquake engineering perspective, however, is that the design spectral shapes specified in IBC 2012 and Eurocode 8 (type 2) codes may not be particularly appropriate for sites that could be affected by large-magnitude, distant earthquakes.