Ongoing public protests in Vietnam over the placement of a Chinese oil rig continued to cause temporary plant shutdowns and some damage to plant office facilities last week, according to sources witnessing the events firsthand or receiving reports from employees on the ground.

The turmoil has caused uncertainty over short-term impacts on production and shipping schedules moving forward. Some compare the plant shutdowns to worker strikes in Vietnam that have caused temporary plant shutdowns in the past. Others said the situation is more serious as it involves actual damage to plant facilities.

The Vietnamese government, which has the ability to control the level of public demonstrations, reportedly has allowed the protests as a form of public unity on the issue, which involves a disputed region of the South China Sea.

Sources said that central police and military personnel have arrested members of mobs that have been destructive in nature and that “order is being restored and should be back to normal in a few days.”

Most of the activity has occurred in the Binh Duong Province north of Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam. Observers say the damage — including broken windows and overturned chairs and office furniture — has affected mostly Chinese and Taiwan, Chinaese-owned companies, although some protesters reportedly haven’t been able to make a distinction between Chinese and Vietnamese, Malaysian or even Japanese-owned businesses.

To protect workers, some furniture plant owners have shut down production for a few days until the situation cools down.

David Beckmann, president of case goods and upholstery manufacturer Emerald Home Furnishings, said that officials at one of his source factories, Starwood Furniture, told him they had shut down last week in response to the protests. Officials also moved foreign technicians offsite to a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City to protect them from any possible danger.

Some protesters apparently came onto the Starwood factory site but did not damage the offices or any production facilities, Beckmann said. He noted that he doesn’t think the plant will lose more than a week’s worth of production time and that he doesn’t foresee any measurable impact on shipments.

“This will all blow over in a week,” he said. “They will come to their senses.”

Richard Magnussen, CEO of Magnussen Home, said that he learned from a high-ranking official that the government had begun to deploy police and military personnel by the middle of last week to control mob violence. The source told Magnussen that arrests have been made and that officials were expecting to have order restored in short order.

Magnussen said that his group of source factories had suffered minimal damage, mostly broken windows in office areas. He said Magnussen’s distribution center in the area suffered no damage but noted that the facility was closed as a precaution. It was expected to reopen sometime around the weekend.

“All our people are safe with no injuries,” he said. “We increased security guards quickly. The military and police are patrolling our industrial park.”

“It is unfortunate that this has happened, but I respect the Vietnam government for allowing peaceful demonstrations and for having a quick response to those that turned it into a destructive protest,” he added.

Some said there have not been protests on this scale in recent memory.

George Tsai, chairman of case goods and upholstery manufacturer Fairmont Designs, said that more than 1,000 factories across different industries were mobbed last week. From what his sources on the ground told him, at least 11 furniture plants in the area suffered some form of physical damage.

To his knowledge, none of his source plants was damaged. However, he believes the situation could create a level of fear and uncertainty for companies sourcing from the area and that there will be a widespread short-term impact on the supply chain in a matter of weeks.

Furniture/Today received an e-mail an industry executive sent to customers on the issue. This note indicated that the protests have not been of this scale before and that there will likely be some disruption in production and shipments.

“It is very hard to determine how bad the impact is, but foreseen shipments will be delayed here and there,” the official wrote.

Kelly Cain, senior vice president of operations for Lexington Home Brands, was in Vietnam during the week of the protests and was visiting the Lodestar plant just before it was attacked last Wednesday.

Cain said the factory owner closed the plant and that everyone had just left before the mob arrived.

He added that he had not heard whether damage to the facility was confined to the office, or whether it affected the manufacturing area. But based on his conversations with his Vietnam staff, all furniture plants in the area were closed for at least a day and most Taiwan, Chinaese and Chinese were leaving the country for a few days “with no sure date of returning.”

“There will definitely be production delays,” Cain said of the furniture plants that had been closed in the area. Cain also said he received word that Akzo Nobel Coatings’ facility in the area also had received some minor damage during the protests. An Akzo spokesperson was checking into the scope of the reported damage at press time.

Tsai, of Fairmont Designs, predicted that there will be a short-term setback on the supply chain, and he also speculated that Chinese technicians working in factories may be scared to return to Vietnam.

“It looked like Saigon falling in 1975,” he said of the mobs in the streets and outside of factories.

The Star, a Malaysian-based online news source, reported that rioters attempted to burn case goods manufacturer Latitude Tree’s plant in the area, but that the fire was put out by company workers.

The paper said the manufacturer halted factory operations since the afternoon of May 14 until further notice.

The company told the paper that its facilities were insured against incidents of rioting, but that adjusters had not yet been able to assess total damages.