Lao Cai affected aftershocks in Yunnan

At 23 hours 27 minutes of the night of April 19, in the territory of Lao Cai city (Lao Cai province), many people felt the aftershocks of the earthquake with the feeling of a truck passing by.

A corner of Lao Cai city

On the morning of April 20, Mr. Tran Phuc Thanh, Director of Sa Pa Geological Radio Station confirmed on the night of April 19, in the northwestern area of ​​Yunnan Province (China), there was a strong earthquake of 4.5 Richter scale. , epicenter at a depth of 23km.

Before that, about 21 hours on March 24, from Yunnan and China, there was also a small earthquake, aftershocks affected Lao Cai at level 3, so few people felt.

Both episodes of this aftershock are light intensity and do not cause material damage, but more or less affect the psychology of Lao Cai people.

To explain clearly to the people, Mr. Nguyen Phuc Thach, Director of Sa Pa Geophysical Station said after the earthquake in Japan on March 11, many parts of the world have earthquakes with strong while Lao Cai is in an area at risk of earthquakes and the impact of earthquakes from surrounding areas.

Until now, although not yet recorded the epicenter of Lao Cai earthquake, but many neighborhoods have occurred and Lao Cai has had a number of times affected. The earthquake in Southwest China on March 24 and April 19 may be caused by the "triggered" Japanese earthquake chain.

Also according to Mr. Tran Phuc Thanh, the Northwestern region of Vietnam limited from the Red River to the Ma River is an area that has been in the process of strong tectonic activity with complex geological structure. Lao Cai is located on the Red-River Chay fault zone, is a large fault zone, most active in the territory of Vietnam.

In the fault zones, tectonic activities occur frequently and this is the basic cause of earthquakes, mountain sands . The problem is how to prevent and fight earthquakes, not problems. happens or not.

From 1983 to 2010, Sa Pa Geophysical Station recorded nearly 500 earthquakes with M (magnitude) = 3.0-6.8 occurring in the Northwest and neighboring areas. In Tuan Giao and Lai Chau, earthquake M 6.7 occurred in 1983, most recently in Dien Bien earthquake with magnitude M 5.3 on February 19, 2001 causing great damage. The earthquakes have shocked the level 6, level 7, level 8 on a large area. All of these earthquakes are shocking at level 6 in Lao Cai.

According to geologists, the prevention and control of earthquakes is not the same as the annual flood and storm prevention and control, it is not possible to reserve preventive equipment daily. It is time to set the seismic resistance standards for construction, transport and defense projects.

The immediate and long-term solution in Lao Cai in particular and the mountainous provinces in general is to make each citizen know about the measures to prevent and fight earthquakes, ie to bring common knowledge about earthquakes to each one.