Chinese ships have intentionally crashed into Vietnamese vessels over the last few days when the latter are seeking to prevent a large oil rig from being set up by China in Vietnamese waters in the East Sea, according to Vietnamese officials.

Ngo Ngoc Thu, vice commander of Vietnam's coast guard, told an international press conference in Hanoi on Wednesday that as many as 80 vessels, including seven military ships, have been deployed by the Chinese to guard its oil rig.

Thu said the Chinese vessels have repeatedly smashed into Vietnamese ships, causing large-scale damage, and even blasting the vessels with water cannons since the weekend.

Vietnamese officials told foreign reporters at the conference that six Vietnamese people have been injured so far during the confrontations but there has been no death. A representative of the Vietnamese side said that Vietnam did not deploy any military vessel to the scene.

According to Thu, Chinese ship number 3411 purposefully smashed into Vietnamese boat number CSB8003 on May 7. The Chinese side also deployed aircraft number 8321 to fly over the CSB8003 to threaten the Vietnamese in their own waters.

At 8:30 am on May 4, Chinese boat number 44103 intentionally crashed into the back of Vietnamese coast guard boat number CSB2012.

At 8:10 am on May 3, Chinese ship number 44044 running at high speed slammed into the right side of Vietnamese coast guard boat number CSB4033 at a location about ten nautical miles away from the oil rig.

Though the 4033 vessel tried to avoid the hit, all of its glass windows were broken eventually.

The vice commander said eight Vietnamese boats in total have been hit, run into, pushed and blasted with water cannons by/from the Chinese boats during the past few days.

At today’s conference, Thu also showed footage provided by the Vietnamese fisheries surveillance force of a Vietnamese boat being besieged by five Chinese ships during a clash.