Kammuri, the ninth tropical storm of the year, made another landfall in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region at 2:50 p.m. on Thursday after lashing across neighboring Guangdong Province and the Beibu Gulf.

This landfall was monitored at Jiangping Town of Dongxing, a city on the Sino-Vietnamese border, and it happened four hours and 10 minutes earlier than forecast.

The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regional Weather Observatory said Kammuri packed 8- to 10-force winds in 22 coastal townships and produced rain totals of 25 millimeters to 99 mm in 70 coastal townships in Guangxi from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday.

The regional civil affairs department said 186,300 people were affected by the tropical storm, including 29,200 who were forced to evacuate.

Direct economic losses were put at 9.43 million yuan (about US$1.35 million).

After Thursday's landfall, Kammuri weakened and moved west at 15-20 km per hour, said the regional weather observatory.

Kammuri produced heavy rain on the Leizhou Peninsula to the southwest of Guangdong, after an evening landfall from Xitou Town, Yangxi County in the province on Wednesday. Records from some hydrological stations in the region Wednesday night suggested the highest level in local history for a century.

There were no official reports of human casualties.

Yangjiang City, where the storm made landfall earlier, took disaster-control measures ahead of the storm. More than 24,600 people working offshore were called back to port and authorities evacuated 7,274 residents from low-lying areas.

Kammuri was the third storm to hit China this season, after tropical storm Kalmaegi in early July and typhoon Fung-Wong last week.

(Xinhua News Agency August 8, 2008)