(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-08-09 13:52

GUANGZHOU -- Pabuk, which had weakened into a tropical depression, regained force to become a tropical storm again on Thursday morning, and may make a landfall in south China's Guangdong Province in the afternoon or evening.

Tropical storm Pabuk turned to be a tropical depression at 8:00 pm Wednesday and turned into a tropical storm 12 hours later, said Lu Shan, chief forecaster of the Guangzhou observatory.

"Pabuk packing wind of 20 meters per second was moving at a speed of 20 km per hour to the west coastlines of Guangdong Province," Lu said. Pabuk did not make a landfall in Shantou, Guangdong Province on Wednesday evening as forecast.

Meanwhile, the eighth tropical storm of this year Wutip, which means butterfly, came into being in the Pacific Ocean to the east of the Philippines at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday and is forecast to hit Fujian Province on Friday afternoon.

"It would be more powerful than Pabuk," said Lin Xinbiao, deputy director of the Fujian Meteorology Observatory.