(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-05-12 18:21

HANOI -- Many people in this capital city hurriedly went out of multistoried buildings on early Monday afternoon after seeing objects in their rooms shook due to impacts of an earthquake in China, local online newspaper VnExpress reported.

Phan Trung Hieu, who works for an insurance company at the 11th floor of the Vincom building on Ba Trieu Street said the floor shook slightly at 13:30 (Vietnamese time). "Hearing a scream ' Earthquake,' everybody rushed to exits," he said. According to some staff at the building, the tremor lasted for about two minutes.

Le Huy Minh, director of Vietnam's Center for Earthquake Alert and Tsunami Warning, said although Hanoi's Cau Giay district is 1, 150 km away from the earthquake's epicenter in the Chinese province of Sichuan, the tremor felt in the district measured between two and three on the Richter scale.

"Only people living in multistoried buildings could feel the tremor," he said.

Earthquakes have been felt in Hanoi several times. On May 16, 2007, many people in multistoried buildings in the capital city rushed to streets after feeling the tremor measuring four on the Richter scale as a result of the earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale in northern Laos.

A major earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan County of southwest China's Sichuan Province at 2:28 p.m. (Beijing time) on Monday, said China's State Seismological Bureau said. The epicenter of the quake was located 31.0 degrees north latitude and 103.4 degrees east longitude.