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High-rise buildings in Bangkok could fall like dominoes if the capital is shaken by a major earthquake, even from a distant fault line, a group of seismic experts has warned.
And they urged authorities to better educate people on how to handle the situation if and when a quake occurs.
Because Bangkok is not located within the Pacific's so-called "Ring of Fire", many tall buildings are particularly vulnerable to jolts as most of them were not built to withstand major tremors.
"There is a likelihood an earthquake outside Bangkok could affect the city," said Pran Siamwalla, an independent academic on environment.
"These quakes could be caused by two fault lines - one in the Andaman Sea, about 700km west of Bangkok, and the Si Sawat line 200km away in Kanchanaburi province."
Mr Pran and his team held a workshop last week about the possibilities of the capital being hit by distant large earthquakes. He hoped it would be a driver for the authorities to identify strategic action and implementation of risk reduction systems.
