Many office employees in high-rise buildings in HCM City felt the light quake.

A 4.7 magnitude earthquake occurred off the Phan Thiet coast in Binh Thuan province on June 23, slightly affected HCM City, according to the Institute of Geophysics.

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The quake happened at 8:55am local time and caused no damage or tidal waves.

The Institute of Geophysics reported that the earthquake occurred at the fault near Phu Quy island, around 150km from the coast. This fault belongs to the boundary along Nam Con Son and Cuu Long depressions.

Many office employees in high-rise buildings in HCM City felt the light quake. “I was working at the office when I felt light shaking. I thought it was caused by trucks, but trucks are banned from the road crossing my office,” revealed a man who works in Binh Thanh district.

“The quake was just several seconds,” noted Thanh, from a media firm in District 10.

Many people working in the 7-storey Vinatafs building felt objects on their table stirring.

Binh, who work for a firm in District 4, immediately informed his friend about the quake via Yahoo Messenger. “I wanted to warn my friends, because I thought that there may have been upcoming quakes,” Binh explained.

HCM City felt aftershocks in the past. On August 5, 2005, the city was hit heavily by a 4.5 Richter-scale earthquake, whose epicenter rested in the ocean about 20-30 kilometers from Vung Tau and also on November 28, 2007, the city endured another 4.5 magnitude earthquake whose epicenter was located in Binh Thuan.

Prof. Nguyen Van Xuyen from the Institute of Geophysics suspects that there may be more earthquakes at the fault offshore at Phan Thiet, but Vietnam can’t forecast when they will come. He observed that Vietnam is currently unable to predict earthquakes, only the areas where they can occur and the possible scale of the quakes.

PV