Chinese ships destroy Vietnam sea cable

For illustration purposes only

TUOITRE

Below is a freshly released video of the Chinese ships that operated illegally in Vietnamese waters May 26 and cut a Vietnamese state-owned ship’s exploration cables.

Crew on board the latter, the Binh Minh 02 -- owned by state oil company PetroVietnam -- shot this video and posted it on Petrotimes.vn, their company website.

The captions are revealing. At 1:13, it says, “Ship 84 is cutting through the seismic exploration cable from right to left.”

At 1.23: “The ship then came back but by then the cables had sunk deep and so it could not cut any more.”

At 1.35: “The three Chinese ships are going around the area.”

Chinese ships have violated Vietnamese sovereignty many times in the past but this is the first time they deliberately severed cables.

The damage to the cables is estimated at US$100,000.

When the three Chinese ships carried out their illegal acts, the Binh Minh 02 had been exploring for oil at 12 degrees 48’25” north latitude and 111 degrees 26’48” east longitude, some 116 nautical miles off Cape Dai Lanh in Phu Yen Province.

It is impossible to cut such cables with normal tools and they must have used specialized equipment, Do Van Hau, deputy general director of PetroVietnam, said.

See clip at www.tuoitrenews.vn