According to Nguyen Thai Son, head of the seismicobservation station in the provincial capital city of Dien Bien Phu, theshaking lasted for 5 to 6 seconds.
With the quake having a relatively strong intensity, buildingsin the epicentre area with weak walls may experience cracks. For Dien BienPhu city, which is 30-35km away from the earthquake location, people couldclearly feel a strong shaking but damage to facilities was unlikely, Son said.
Quake-related developments in the district are now underclose monitoring.
Earlier, in late December, Laos’ Phongsaly province, whichshares a borderline with Dien Bien, were rocked by many earthquakes withmagnitude from 3.0 to 5.5. Among them, a 5.5 magnitude on December 24 were felt in many provinces and cities in Vietnam. Three other consecutive earthquakes withmagnitude from 3.0 to 3.7 took place in Phongsaly on December 26 and 31, withtheir epicentres being only 21-50km away from Dien Bien./.