Chanchu, the first tropical storm of the year that intensified into a typhoon and roared over the South China Sea Saturday, will bring high winds and heavy rain to many parts of south China in the coming three days, meteorologists said Sunday.

The meteorological station in Fujian Province on China's southeastern coast said Sunday the typhoon is moving northwestward at 20 km per hour and its outer rim has affected parts of south China.

It said the wind scale in the southeastern coastal regions will be between six and eight, with occasional winds gusting scaling up to 10. Some southern Chinese provinces, including Guangdong, Fujian and Taiwan, are in for rainstorms in the coming three days, it said.

The meteorological station in China's southernmost island province of Hainan located Chanchu at 14 degrees north latitude and 118.2 degrees east longitude at 2:00 a.m. Sunday and predicted it will approach the Pearl River mouth in Guangdong on Monday.

Chanchu, whose name means "pearl," formed in the northwestern Pacific, about 550 km to the east of Mindanao island in the Philippines on May 9. It hit central Philippines on Saturday, killing at least 32 people and leaving more than 1,000 others homeless.

(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2006)