Second typhoon of the year hits Chinese land

The second typhoon of the year in the northwest Pacific Ocean made landfall north of the South China Sea on Friday afternoon, China's National Meteorological Center said.

Tropical Cyclone Maliksi strengthened from a tropical depression to a tropical storm at around 2 pm on Friday, with its center located at about 175 kilometers south of Yangjiang, Guangdong province, at 20.4 degrees north latitude and 111.9 degrees east longitude. It packed winds of up to level-8 on the Beaufort scale at 18 meters per second near its center, and the minimum central pressure was 998 hectopascal, the center said.

Typhoon Maliksi is traveling northeast at 10 km per hour with little change in intensity, the center said.

By Friday night, it is expected to make landfall on the western coast of Guangdong at the tropical storm level. Subsequently, it will turn northeastward and the intensity will gradually weaken, the center said.

In response to the first typhoon to arrive in China, Guangdong issued a fourth-level emergency response for typhoons, the least severe in its warning system, on Thursday evening.