Difficult to predict before earthquakes

On March 4, Dr. Le Huy Minh, Deputy Director of the Institute of Geophysics, Director of the Earthquake Reporting Center and a tsunami warning exchanged with VietNamNet , said the earthquake in Lai Chau was caused by the breaking zone. Muong Te fracture (Lai Chau province) does not cause any significant harm.

This earthquake is located nearly 150 km from Lai Chau Town, not around the town as in the previous games. This earthquake caused a shock level VII in the MSK64 scale in the epicenter. Usually, at level VI or higher, earthquakes can cause harmful effects. However, this is a shallow earthquake, small, far from residential areas, so the scope of impact of tremors is not large.

Black dot is an earthquake location on March 3 (Photo: Vietnam.gov.vn)

Earlier, on May 16, 2007, a 6.1-magnitude strong earthquake lasted for 15-20 seconds. Dien Bien Phu (Dien Bien province) is about 200 km to the northwest (belongs to the Lao People's Democratic Republic).

Although earthquakes in recent years have seen many earthquakes, it is impossible to predict the probability of frequent earthquakes or not, the Institute of Geophysics said.

According to Mr. Le Huy Minh, with the project of upgrading and refurbishing seismic stations, with a total budget of VND 78 billion, to cover the earthquake reporting system in the whole country, there will be 29 remote measuring stations installed. throughout the country. This project offers many advantages that we do not currently have: the number of remote stations will be evenly distributed across the territory, will quickly and easily identify the seismic data occurring in any of the above regions. country. Currently, only the northern area is advantageous in identifying and transmitting data immediately after seismic.

However, this project is currently in the survey phase, and it is estimated that another 4 years will be completed to install remote measuring stations.

So far, not only Vietnam but all countries in the world have not forecasted exactly when seismic events will occur. Modern engineering machinery has not been able to calculate these previous forecasts, can only predict somewhat of the games, through periodic calculations, some expressions from nature and animals in the celestial However . However, the results are sometimes not the same, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, so it cannot be considered as a scientific method - Mr. Minh said.

Vinh Giang