Taiwan braces for typhoon Nanmadol
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Xinhua, August 29, 2011
China's National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center on Sunday downgraded Nanmadol from a strong to a normal strength typhoon.
Nanmadol was located 70 km southeast of the southernmost tip of Taiwan at 6 p.m. Sunday and was moving north at a speed of 12 to 8 km per hour. It was expected to make landfall in Taiwan Monday, Taiwan's local weather bureau said.
Taiwan authorities issued land and sea warnings Sunday afternoon and thousands of people have been evacuated.
Offices and schools in many places, such as Taitung and Hualien, were closed from Sunday afternoon and Monday. The island's forestry bureau said all the forest parks should also be closed.
From Sunday night to Monday, Bashi Channel, off the southeast coast of Taiwan, will see waves of 6 to 8.5 meters, the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait will see waves of 4 to 6 meters, and waters off Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces will see waves of 2 to 3 meters, according to China's National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center.
The center is continuing its yellow alert for the storm, warning local authorities and the public to take precautions and intensify safety checks on fishing facilities.
The yellow alert is the second-lowest alert level in the country's four-level rainstorm alert system.
Weather forecast department in Fujian Province said the typhoon may again land in the province after its landfall in Taiwan, bringing much wind, tides and rains to the province.
In Anhui Province, which borders Zhejiang, over 2,400 stranded people had been relocated by Saturday night, as continuous rainstorms in recent days have triggered floods in the province. The rainfall had reached 420 mm in the county of Huaiyuan, and 1.3 million mu of crops were soaked in the province, according the drought and floods relief headquarters of Anhui on Sunday.
While east China is receiving abundant rains, southwest China's Yunnan Province is being plagued with the worst drought since 1959. The rainfall over the past eight months decreased by 19 percent to 598 mm, leaving 502,000 residents short of drinking water in the heavily-affected Qujing City, said Ning Degang, vice mayor of the city.
The provincial weather forecast department said the drought would linger as there was still no major rain in most of the regions of the province in the next three days.
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