Mr. Nguyen Thai Son - Head of the earthquake Monitoring Station of Dien Bien Phu City, Dien Bien Province (under the Institute of Geophysics) said: The earthquake occurred at 11:25:51 on May 16.
Immediately after the earthquake occurred, Dien Bien Phu City Seismic Monitoring Station sent seismic data to the Institute of Geophysics.
The results showed that the earthquake concussion in Muong Cha district (Dien Bien province), the magnitude of 5.0. The coordinates of the earthquake occurred 31,747 degrees North latitude - 103,129 degrees of East; The depth of pepper is about 10km. Currently, the Geopolita Institute assesses the level of disaster risk caused by the earthquake is level 2.
The shaking for a few seconds surprised and frightened many people in Dien Bien Phu City and Tuan Giao, Muong Ang, and Muong Cha districts.
Talking to a reporter from Lao Dong newspaper, Mr. Quang Van Thim (Him Lam ward - Dien Bien Phu city) was still shocked when he recounted: "At around 11:17 a.m., I was working at the company with 2 colleagues in the room when I suddenly felt the shaking. We were so confused, even though we were about to run out, the shaking had just ended.
In Muong Cha district, which was identified as near the center of the impact, Ms. Lo Thi Diem My (Muong Cha town) said that she clearly felt the shaking and immediately ran out of the room.
I estimate the shaking lasted about 5-6 seconds. After the earthquake, I shared it on social media to notify friends and relatives" - Ms. My said.
When the earthquake occurred, Mr. Tong Van Nam (Muong Lan commune, Muong Ang district) was sitting in his room editing photos and felt the ground shaking quite strongly.
"My whole family rushed out. Many neighbors around also ran out. Notably, immediately after the earthquake, the power in my area was out" - Mr. Nam said.
Currently, the Earthquake and Tsunami Warning Newspaper Center (Institute of Earth Sciences) is continuing to monitor. According to Vietnam's classification, earthquakes of equal to or larger than average size of 5 can cause moderate to severe damage to poorly designed construction works.
In the past 100 years, the two biggest earthquakes in Vietnam have occurred in Dien Bien.
In 2015, a strong earthquake of 6.9 on the Richter scale, the center of which was located in the south of Dien Bien basin, and in 1983, a strong earthquake of 6.7 on the Richter scale, the center of which was in Tuan Giao district. Fortunately, both of the above earthquakes did not cause much damage because at that time there were not many modern construction works, mainly hills.
