As China braces for Super Typhoon Saola, Guangdong party boss calls for ‘near-war state’ to combat storm
- Provincial Communist Party chief Huang Kunming urges officials to ‘ensure that no family or individual is left behind’ and protect lives and property
- Tropical cyclone is expected to make landfall along the province’s southern coast between Friday night and Saturday morning, bringing heavy rain
Huang said authorities in Guangdong should “stand by and make every effort to win the tough battle against the typhoon and effectively safeguard the lives and property of the people”.
Super Typhoon Saola: highest warning as storm barrels towards southern China
China’s National Meteorological Centre (NMC) maintained its highest red alert for the typhoon on Friday morning and forecast that Saola would make landfall along the southern coast of Guangdong between Friday night and Saturday morning.
The NMC added that heavy rain would fall in eastern and southern Guangdong and the southeastern part of neighbouring Fujian province between Friday morning and Saturday morning.
The Guangdong government raised its typhoon emergency response to the highest level on Thursday.
Shenzhen, a tech hub bordering Hong Kong and home to 12.6 million people, announced on Friday morning that the city would close offices, construction sites and factories from 4pm and highway entrances from 7pm. Local schools were closed on Thursday afternoon.
Seven other cities have taken the same measures, including the provincial capital Guangzhou and the coastal cities of Zhuhai and Shantou.
The port at Hengqin, which connects Zhuhai with Macau, was also closed.
The Fire and Rescue Corps of Guangdong Province said close to 10,000 firefighters and 210 vessels were on standby for disaster relief.
China Railway Guangzhou Group said all trains in and out of Guangdong would be suspended between 8pm on Friday and 6pm on Saturday.
The official news agency Xinhua said on Friday that more than 27,000 fishing boats had returned to harbours in Guangdong to take shelter from the storm.
Super Typhoon Saola: highest warning as storm barrels towards southern China
In neighbouring Fujian province more than 100,000 people in high-risk areas had been evacuated, according to state broadcaster CCTV, and schools in the cities of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou delayed the start of the new academic year until Monday.
Zhou Zuyi, Fujian’s provincial party secretary, told officials: “[We should] do a solid job of flood prevention in rivers and basins, and defending cities and villages against waterlogging.”
