South China's Hainan Province is ordering fishing boats back to harbor and inspection of reservoirs to brace for a new tropical storm which formed early Saturday in the South China Sea.
The flood control authorities of Hainan asked local counties Saturday afternoon to keep vigilant, order fishing boats offshore back to harbor and inspect reservoirs to meet heavy rainfall the storm will bring.
The eye of the storm was 450 km south of Sanya City in the South China Sea at 5 PM Saturday packing winds of up to 64.8 km per hour, according to the provincial meteorological station.
The storm will continue to gain force as its eye moves northwest at a speed of five to ten km per hour, it said.
The tropical storm will bring heavy rain or rainstorm to most parts of Hainan Saturday night and Sunday with strong winds.
It will bring showers to southern Guangdong and torrential rains to the western parts of the province in the forthcoming three days, which will help ease off the hot weather plaguing the province, according to the Guangzhou Central Observatory.
Most parts of Guangdong have recently been thrown under a spell of high temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius.
(Xinhua News Agency August 5, 2007)