Chanchu, the first tropical storm of the year that intensified
into a typhoon and roared over the South China Sea Saturday, will
bring high winds and heavy rain to many parts of south China in the
coming three days, meteorologists said Sunday.
The meteorological station in Fujian Province on China's
southeastern coast said Sunday the typhoon is moving northwestward
at 20 km per hour and its outer rim has affected parts of south
China.
It said the wind scale in the southeastern coastal regions will
be between six and eight, with occasional winds gusting scaling up
to 10. Some southern Chinese provinces, including Guangdong, Fujian
and Taiwan, are in for rainstorms in the coming three days, it
said.
The meteorological station in China's southernmost island
province of Hainan located Chanchu at 14 degrees north latitude and
118.2 degrees east longitude at 2:00 a.m. Sunday and predicted it
will approach the Pearl River mouth in Guangdong on Monday.
Chanchu, whose name means "pearl," formed in the northwestern
Pacific, about 550 km to the east of Mindanao island in the
Philippines on May 9. It hit central Philippines on Saturday,
killing at least 32 people and leaving more than 1,000 others
homeless.
(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2006)
