The raging storm that accompanied Kammuri pummelled major cities in eastern coastal area of Guangdong yesterday, knocking down trees and billboards in Shantou, Shanwei, Chaoyang and Lufeng, according to officials at the Guangdong Provincial Headquarters of Anti-Flooding.

Fifty-six flights were delayed or cancelled at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on Sunday because of the bad weather.

No deaths or injuries had been reported by yesterday evening.

To prepare for Kammuri, Guangdong provincial government officials issued an urgent notice late last week telling local government departments to keep vessels in local shelters.

Kammuri is the 12th typhoon to strike the Chinese coast this year and the first to hit Guangdong this year.

Scientists developed a sophisticated observation system earlier this summer to help them detect storms early on.

The nationwide project, known as GTEX, is one of the key high-tech research projects launched by the Ministry of Science and Technology. It will operate in the peak typhoon season from July to September.

South China's Guangdong Province is prone to typhoons and thus an appropriate place for research. Nine typhoons slammed into China last year, causing 231 deaths and 17.6 billion yuan (US$2.1 billion) in losses.

The latest research project will last two years, said He Xiajiang of the Guangdong Meteorology Observatory, one of the project's founders. He said the project will help advance theoretical research on typhoons and provide a more precise forecast system.

In the past, observations hinged largely on satellite cloud pictures, which just provided a brief outline of the typhoon and no data on the distribution of wind and rain or the internal structure of typhoons.

The latest experiment involves 300 automatic weather stations with advanced technologies like Doppler radar and wind profiler. Observation equipment valued at 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million) is being attached to a moving carrier used to detect typhoons and analyze the changing wind patterns at close range.

The hope is that the data can be used to develop a more precise forecasting system, He said.

(China Daily August 6, 2002)