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Vincent Tan

A series of small earthquakes beneath Keningau, an inland district of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, is drawing attention to a part of the state where scientists say the fault lines are poorly understood and the consequences of a larger quake could be devastating.
The latest, a magnitude 3.4 tremor on September 3, was felt in several parts of Keningau, prompting staff at the district office to suspend a meeting and move to a designated safe area. No serious damage was reported.
The tremor was one of several weak earthquakes recorded around Keningau since 2023, raising questions about efforts to strengthen monitoring, development and disaster planning in the area.
Experts say a stronger earthquake in the region could trigger landslides, cutting off roads and other vital infrastructure.
Sabah has focused much of its earthquake monitoring and preparedness on Ranau, a district near Mount Kinabalu where an earthquake killed 18 people and caused widespread damage in 2015.
But about 100km (60 miles) southwest of Ranau, the similarly mountainous Keningau and Tambunan valleys were identified as seismically active as far back as 2018 in federal planning guidance. Both lie within the Crocker fault zone, a network of geological faults in Sabah’s mountainous interior associated with earthquake activity.
Yet neither Keningau nor Tambunan appear on the government’s published list of mapped active fault zones or areas where developers must check for earthquake risks before building.
It is unclear how extensively the two districts have been mapped and monitored for seismic risks. The government’s Minerals and Geoscience Department did not respond to questions from This Week in Asia.

“Sabah’s seismic hazard is broader than Ranau alone, our scientific understanding of Sabah’s earthquake sources has not yet caught up with the level of development and exposure that now exists,” said Felix Tongkul, a geologist at the University of Malaysia Sabah who has studied faults in the state for more than three decades.
“What makes Keningau scientifically interesting is … the fact that several small earthquakes have occurred there over recent years,” Tongkul said.
Keningau has experienced six weak earthquakes, ranging from magnitude 1.4 to 3.4, since April 2023, according to Mohd Hisham Mohd Anip, director general of the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia).
Mohd Hisham told This Week In Asia on Friday that the sequence showed local seismic activity “associated with the release of tectonic energy”, with the “possibility of recurring earthquakes”.
Of MetMalaysia’s 80 seismic monitoring stations, 28 are in Sabah – concentrated around the Mount Kinabalu area – while Keningau has only one.
“For now, the current station network is sufficient for monitoring seismic activity on a regional scale,” Mohd Hisham said.
The 13th Malaysia Plan, a national development blueprint covering 2026 to 2030 unveiled in July last year, does not list any new stations, though MetMalaysia intends to upgrade one station in Sandakan and four others across Sabah.
Two new monitoring stations were announced in November after a series of tremors rattled Segamat in Johor – a state with no history of damaging earthquakes – along with four to be upgraded under the plan’s first implementation phase.

Seismic records
Johari Abdul Ghani, then the acting minister of natural resources and environmental sustainability, said in November that the Minerals and Geoscience Department had mapped 11 active fault zones nationwide between 2016 and 2020.
Four were in Sabah: Lobou Lobou and Mensaban in Ranau, and Lahad Datu and Tabin in Lahad Datu. No faults in Keningau or Tambunan appeared on the list.
This contrasted with a 2018 guideline from PlanMalaysia, the federal town planning department under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, which named both Keningau and Tambunan as seismically active.
“Ranau is relatively well studied, whereas places such as Keningau, Tambunan and parts of the interior are [not],” Tongkul said.
Johari added that six fault-movement benchmark stations had been installed in Sabah.
Arthur Joseph Kurup, who took over as natural resources minister in December, has announced 18 additional early-warning systems for Sabah. He said four of the nation’s 34 systems were in Sabah, with two in Kundasang.
The ministry announced plans earlier this year to strengthen its 2017 hazard map underpinning Malaysia’s seismic building standard, including new active fault-mapping.
In June, a community disaster-risk initiative in Kundasang included an earthquake simulation exercise, early-warning and evacuation procedures, and landslide-risk mapping.
Sabah has held other disaster-preparedness exercises since the 2015 earthquake, largely centred on Kundasang and Ranau.
In October 2024, the National Disaster Management Agency held landslide drills in Kundasang with the Sabah government involving more than 70 personnel from various agencies.
This Week in Asia contacted the agency and the Sabah Fire and Rescue Department regarding earthquake contingency plans, preparedness and public education, but received no response.

Hidden faults
Rodeano Roslee, dean of science and technology at the University of Malaysia Sabah, said the geology of the interior left little doubt about the source of the quakes.
Because Keningau and Tambunan lay within the Crocker fault zone, he said that normal faults – showing displacement of several metres – had been recorded cutting through young river gravels near Keningau.
Some faults might also be hidden beneath valley sediments, Rodeano said.
“We know enough to recognise Keningau and Tambunan as fault-controlled and potentially active areas, but not yet enough to quantify the hazard of individual faults with the confidence required for detailed risk-based planning,” he said.
This uncertainty mattered for determining how far buildings were set back from active faults, as well as for predicting future earthquake intensity and designing critical infrastructure, Rodeano said.
Rather than halting development altogether, he said “the level of geological investigation should be proportional to the consequences of failure”.
The 2015 disaster in Ranau had shown what could happen when an earthquake destabilised slopes and rockfalls, Rodeano said, urging Sabah authorities to implement statewide fault mapping, better earthquake monitoring and stronger infrastructure planning.
“The recent Keningau earthquakes are not grounds for alarm, but they are grounds for investigation,” Rodeano said.


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Tambunan town in Sabah. Keningau and Tambunan are listed as seismically active under a 2018 guideline. Photo: Shutterstock

Residential houses in the area near Mount Kinabalu in Kundasang, a town in the Ranau district. Sabah has focused much of its earthquake monitoring and preparedness on Ranau since the 2015 earthquake. Photo: AFP

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Scientists say the mountainous regions of Keningau and Tambunan have been overlooked in the state’s monitoring for earthquake risks


Scientists say the mountainous regions of Keningau and Tambunan have been overlooked in the state’s monitoring for earthquake risks.


Earthquakes

Environment

Natural disasters

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Why small quakes in Malaysia’s Sabah are sounding seismic alarms

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Scientists say the mountainous regions of Keningau and Tambunan have been overlooked in the state’s monitoring for earthquake risks

Scientists say the mountainous regions of Keningau and Tambunan have been overlooked in the state’s monitoring for earthquake risks