KUNDASANG, June 8 — The Meteorological Department recorded 54 aftershocks following the earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale with its epicentre in Ranau at 7.15am on Friday.

Director of Sabah Meteorological Department, Abd Malik Tussin said all the aftershocks measured between 1.6 to 4.5 on the scale.

He added that the aftershock measuring 4.5 was recorded at 7.06pm on Friday.

“Actually, under normal circumstances, when a medium-scale earthquake occurs, there will surely be aftershocks. It is just that we cannot determine how long the aftershocks will be, it could be for a day or a week or even months.

“Going by the data I received, on the first day, Friday, alone, we observed 30 aftershocks, on Saturday 13 and yesterday 11,” he told Bernama at the operations centre which was set up in Kinabalu Park, here today.

“We really did not expect so many aftershocks, we are trying to determine the actual cause of the earthquake,” he said.

Asked if there was a possibility of a bigger earthquake compared to the main one, Abd Malik said: “Going by the history of earthquakes throughout the world, there is a possibility of a bigger one from the main shock, but this possibility is quite small, only between 5 to 10 per cent,” he said. — Bernama