South China provinces alerted as tropical storm approaches

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Five provinces in southern China have been alerted as tropical storm Nock-Ten, which killed at least 25 people in the Philippines, is approaching, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the National Commission for Disaster Reduction (NCDR) and the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA).

Nock-ten will be the eighth storm to hit China this year. It will enter the South China Sea late Wednesday and churn up waves as high as eight meters high, said an official from the weather bureau in the coastal province of Guangdong.

The storm will then move northwest at about 20 kilometers per hour toward the provinces of Hainan and Guangdong, said Yushan, chief weatherman of the bureau.

The storm may make landfall over the coastal areas of western Guangdong and eastern Hainan Province. Heavy downpours are expected to pound those provinces over the next few days, Yu said.

The storm will also affect the provinces of Yunnan and Fujian and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, according to the statement from the NCDR and MCA.

The statement urged local civil affairs agencies to closely monitor the tropical storm and issue early warnings to the public in a timely manner.

Three government-owned storage bases for disaster relief supplies in the cities of Fuzhou, Nanning and Kunming have been requested to get ready for a response to any disaster that might result from the storm.

Civil affairs authorities are required to provide round-the-clock monitoring service of the storm and manage the evacuation local residents, according to the statement.