More than 300 fishermen were forced to take shelter in southern China's Nansha Islands to escape stormy seas caused by Typhoon Hagibis, the Hainan Maritime Affairs Bureau said on Friday.

 

Xie Chunfu, an official in charge of communication and navigation, said the bureau had sent out rescue vessels to search for 25 missing Filipino fishermen.

 

Among the fishermen safely docked at Nansha, the southernmost point in China, at least 250 were Chinese. The remainder included 30 Filipinos and seven Vietnamese. The typhoon, the 25th of the year, has left the islands facing food and drinking water shortages.

 

Xie said the Filipino and Vietnamese fishermen were evacuated by passing Chinese fishing boats on Thursday and Friday.

 

"Our rescue ships left the Pearl River mouth in Guangzhou on Thursday afternoon and are expected to arrive there on Saturday," he said.

 

Hagibis, meaning "rapidity" in the Filipino language Tagalog, blew into to the South China Sea on Wednesday and intensified into a typhoon on Thursday.

 

At 8 a.m. on Friday, it was located at a latitude of 11.5 degrees north and a longitude of 110.9 degrees to the east, according to the China Meteorological Station in Beijing. It was blowing at 126 kilometers per hour at its eye and was moving toward the northwest, about 470 km north of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2007)