Hani Mahmoud Zahran, director general of the center, said it would bring the total number of centers for monitoring seismic activity in the Kingdom to 140. He said the existing 90 centers use advanced systems to analyze seismic activity.

He emphasized the need for a committee to identify earthquake hotspots in the Kingdom as well as implement related standards for Saudi construction, especially in quake-prone areas such as Jazan, Makkah and Madinah provinces.

“Preparations to tackle earthquakes, creating public awareness on how to deal with them and making use of available resources will reduce their impact,” he said.

“We have to identify the sources of earthquakes and conduct detailed studies on them,” Al-Madinah Arabic daily quoted Zahran as saying.

The Civil Defense, he said, should prepare an emergency plan to deal with possible earthquakes by identifying the roles of related departments and make necessary preparations.

“We have to develop a culture of how to deal with earthquakes and volcanoes among Saudis and expatriates,” he said and urged the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and municipalities to make sure people follow the new earthquake-resistant construction standards when implemented.

Speaking about his organization’s mission, Zahran said: “Our activities include continuous monitoring of earthquakes and man-made disasters within Saudi Arabia, as well as processing and analysis of all recorded earthquakes within the Kingdom. We also conduct research on earthquakes and related risks within the Kingdom. We’ll release data to governmental organizations and the media and cooperate with international earthquake data centers.”

In a related development, Abdullah Al-Amri, head of the department of seismology at King Saud University in Riyadh, has downplayed the effect of tremors in the southern city of Qunfudah, saying it would not exceed a magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale.

Qunfudah was hit by three earthquakes with magnitudes of 4.4, 3.7 and 3.5 recently. “When an earthquake occurs it unleashes 70 percent of its strength while the remaining 30 percent will be distributed in a limited area over two to three days,” he explained.

He said Baha, Baljurashi and Nammas are far away from earthquake-prone areas.