China braces for super typhoon Saola ahead of new semester

GUANGZHOU/FUZHOU -- In response to the approaching super typhoon Saola, multiple cities in coastal Chinese provinces, including Guangdong and Fujian, have postponed the start of the upcoming new school semester, suspended train and ferry operations, and directed fishing boats in the affected waters to return to ports for safety.

Cities including Shantou, Shanwei, Jieyang and Chaozhou in eastern Guangdong province, and Quanzhou and Zhangzhou in Fujian province have pushed back the start of the new semester for primary schools, middle schools and kindergartens to Sept 4.

The use of Guangdong sections of railway lines, including the Guangzhou-Shenzhen intercity line and the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed railway line, is set to be suspended from Thursday to Monday, according to the China Railway Guangzhou Group Co., Ltd.

To cope with the typhoon, Guangdong's provincial flood, drought and typhoon control headquarters raised its emergency response to Level II at 8 am Thursday.

Similar adjustments and suspensions of train operations have also been implemented in the neighboring Fujian province.

Fujian has halted multiple over-water construction projects and several passenger ferry services in the cities of Xiamen and Zhangzhou as of 8 am Thursday. Services of four passenger shipping routes across the Taiwan Strait, which start from Xiamen, Quanzhou and Fuzhou in Fujian, have been suspended to ward off dangers triggered by the approaching super typhoon.

In Shanwei, Guangdong, where the typhoon is likely to make landfall on Friday, the city's flood, drought and typhoon control headquarters on Thursday ordered the suspension of school, construction, production, transportation and business operations from Friday until an exit from the Level I emergency response to the typhoon.

China's national observatory on Thursday renewed a red alert for Typhoon Saola, the most severe warning in its four-tier typhoon warning system, as the ninth typhoon of this year is expected to bring gales and heavy rain to southern and eastern parts of the country.

Observed over the ocean, the super typhoon Saola was about 330 km southeast of Huilai County in Guangdong Province at 5 a.m. Thursday, with a maximum wind force of over grade-17 near its center at a speed of 58 meters per second.

It is expected to move northwest at a speed of 10 km per hour with the intensity slowly decreasing, the National Meteorological Center said in a statement.

It will make landfall somewhere in the coastal areas stretching from Huilai County to Hong Kong on Friday afternoon or Friday night, or move west by south and pass through the waters of eastern Guangdong without making landfall, according to the center.