Tropical storm Haima, the 21st of the kind this year, landed in east China's Zhejiang Province from Wenzhou City around midday on Monday, said local meteorological observatory.

The eye of Haima, the Chinese name for sea horse, caused a fresh gale and is moving northwestwardly at a speed of 20 km per hour, said the observatory.

Under its impact, 15 weather stations across the province monitored a rainfall of 50 mm each, three of which even had a rainfall of 100 mm, from 8 a.m. on Sunday through to 8 a.m. on Monday.

By press time, no reports of damages caused by the tropical storm was available.

As the eye of the tropical storm passes by, there will be strong gale to hurricane in offshore areas along the coast of Zhejiang Province, and gale and torrential rains in eastern and southern Zhejiang on Monday. The windy and rainy weather will continue in the whole province, and gale on the sea near Zhejiang coast on Tuesday, said the observatory.

The observatory predicted that the tropical storm would be reduced to low tropical pressure upon landing and swept through areas including Wenzhou, Taizhou, Jinhua, Shaoxing, Hangzhou, Huzhou.

Local government organizations throughout the province are all on alert. They have taken a range of measures including evacuating residents from dangerous areas to safe grounds and assigning more personnel on weather monitoring to limit possible losses caused by the tropical storm to the least extent.

(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2004)