Tsunamis in the East Sea and damages to the coastline of Vietnam

Abstract

According to field surveys as well as data recorded in text documents, it can be said that Vietnam has historically been hit by a tsunami. However, we still do not have enough information to accurately determine the destructive power of these tsunamis against the coastal line of Vietnam. On the other hand, in the South China Sea, there are four potential earthquakes that could lead to tsunamis affecting coastal line of Vietnam. Using models, tsunami simulations as well as computing algorithms, experts say that tsunamis will appear and attack coastal line of Vietnam when there are submarine earthquakes with magnitude of larger than 7 at the fault along Central Asia shelf with an earthquake with magnitude of greater than 8 at the Manila Trench. If an earthquake of magnitude 8 occurs in the south of Hainan, the tsunami impacting coastal line of Vietnam will be greater than 2 m. If an earthquake of magnitude 8 occurs in Manila, the tsunami from Da Nang city to Quang Ngai will reach 4 m. From there we can see that the risk of tsunami occurring and attacking the coastal cities of Vietnam is there, although the probability is not high.