"Fairly strong" earthquake hits Dien Bien

The earthquake occurred at 2.37 pm, Thursday, at a depth of 12km in Sa Dung Commune, Dien Bien Dong District (marked by the red line). – Photo: Google Maps

The quake occurred at 2.37pm at a depth of 12km in Sa Dung Commune, Dien Bien Dong District.

The earthquake measured scale 5 on the MSK-64 scale, which means “fairly strong” and lasted for about three seconds.

"As the intensity of the quake was fairly strong, residents in the centre of Dien Bien Phu City, some 30km away from the epicentre, also felt slight tremors. If the epicentre had been in a populated area, it would have resulted in slight damage to houses and infrastructure,” Nguyen Thai Son, head of Dien Bien Phu City’s Seismic Monitoring Station, said.

The past 10 days have seen various low-intensity earthquakes being reported at different localities in northern and central Viet Nam.

On Wednesday, a 3.1 magnitude earthquake hit Vo Nhai District in northern Thai Nguyen Province at a depth of 10km.

From August 15 to 22, Ha Quang District in northern Cao Bang Province, an area in the East Sea 90km off the coast of central Quang Tri Province, and Ha Long City in northeastern Quang Ninh Province were also hit by earthquakes of below 2.8 magnitudes.

Nguyen Xuan Anh, head of the Institute of Geophysics which governs the Earthquake and Tsunami Warning Centre, said all recent quakes were normal, of low scale and did not affect people’s lives.

“The centre is monitoring the earthquakes and will issue warnings when an earthquake of above 5.0 magnitude occurs,” he said.

An earthquake is a rare occurrence in Viet Nam. In the 20th century, the country recorded two large earthquakes, both in current Dien Bien Province -- 6.75 magnitude in 1935 and 6.8 magnitude in 1983. However, no heavy damage was recorded.