Society

Boats head for safety as storm moves in

By Li Wenfang (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-06-23 08:02

Tourists in Zhuhai, in South China's Guangdong province, take photos on Wednesday in front of a sculpture on a section of the coast that will be hit by Haima, the fourth tropical storm to hit the Pacific Ocean's northwest this year. [Li Jianshu / for China Daily]

GUANGZHOU - Fishing boats off the coast west of the Pearl River's estuary were ordered to return to their moorings on Wednesday as South China's Guangdong province braced for the arrival of Haima, the fourth tropical storm to hit the Pacific Ocean's northwest this year.

Haima was expected to make landfall between the province's Taishan and Xuwen on Thursday morning, with winds hitting force scale 8, according to the website of the China Meteorological Administration.

Related readings:  Tropical storm Haima hits S China  China embraces first tropical storm this year  Rain, floods continue to batter S China

Heavy rain is forecast for central and southern Guangdong, central and southern Guangxi, Hainan, Taiwan and southern Yunnan until June 24.

The Guangdong provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters triggered a level-4 emergency response on Wednesday morning and sent teams led by Vice-Governor Liu Kun to western Guangdong to oversee disaster prevention work.

Thirty-one monitoring stations in the Pearl River Delta and elsewhere in Guangdong recorded heavy rainfall on Wednesday, according to the provincial water resources department.

The part of the coast where the storm makes landfall may not be the worst-hit area of the province and efforts should be made to prevent a disastrous aftermath in other regions, with prevention efforts in place to guard against mountain torrents triggered by the possible prolonged rain, said Huang Baiqing, deputy chief of the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.

The office called upon relevant government agencies to evacuate people from disaster-prone areas and make last-minute checks of dams and reservoirs.

The sky was overcast on Wednesday afternoon in Yangdong county in Yangjiang city on Guangdong's coast and all of the 1,172 local fishing boats had returned to the harbor, said Li Yiqin, deputy director of the county's flood, drought and typhoon mitigation office.

"We have evacuated 986 people who live on the lowlands and called back 582 people who had been working on fishing rafts," Li said.

Since Tuesday morning, the maritime radio station out of Maoming city has been broadcasting the location, movement and expected impact of Haima every three hours to the more than 1 million people working at sea or in the aquaculture industry.

Ferries plying the Qiongzhou Straight were ordered to return to their harbors as a precaution on Wednesday morning, according to the Hainan provincial maritime safety administration.

Some flights and shipping lines to or from Shenzhen in Guangdong and flights in and out of Haikou in Hainan were delayed or canceled, with the rail service between Guangdong and Hainan suspended.

And education authorities in Hong Kong called off classes on Wednesday at kindergartens and schools for children with physical disabilities and those for children with learning difficulties.

Meanwhile, the fifth tropical storm of the year, Meari, was forming at sea to the east of the Philippines on Wednesday afternoon, according to the China Meteorological Administration. Moving northwest and gaining intensity, Meari was already whipping up winds as strong as force scale 8.

Zheng Erqi contributed to this story.