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The first typhoon of the year to hit China should make landfall on the southern island of Hainan later on Monday or early on Tuesday, meteorological officials have warned.
Typhoon Kujira, now heading across the South China Sea, is expected to help ease the island's current severe drought.
The China Meteorological Administration issued a yellow typhoon warning – the third highest ranking of its four-level warning system – at 11am on Monday, which had not been increased by 4.15pm.
Hainan residents and visitors have also been warned to take precautions against the bad weather.
Ferry services on the Qiongzhou Strait, between Hainan and Guangdong province, and rail services in and out of the island were suspended from noon on Monday, Xinhua news agency and Hainan Daily reported.
Flights to and from the island’s Haikou Meilan International Airport are also expected to be affected.
All of the province’s 23,500 fishing boats have returned to harbour.
The Hainan provincial government had sent five teams of officials to the eastern coast of the island to organise preparations for the typhoon, Xinhua said.
Local governments had sent personnel to Hainan's reservoirs to help replenish water supplies once the heavy rains brought by the typhoon had arrived, Hainan Daily said.
The drought, the worst experienced by the popular tourist destination in more than half a century, was affecting about one third of the island, Xinhua reported..
Since the end of April, the province has been struggling with severe drought that has crippled its agricultural production, which accounts for more than half of its exports.
Nearly 120 reservoirs and 45 rivers have dried up, according to Chinese media reports.
“Now we’re really looking forward to the typhoon,” one farmer told the People’s Daily in a report on Saturday.
“If it doesn’t rain soon, there will be no way to save the crops.”
As of noon on Monday, the eye of the storm was three hours south of the Hainan city of Wenchang, and travelling at 10km per hour, Hainan Daily’s Weibo page reported.
The strength of the typhoon will not weaken until it reaches land somewhere along the eastern coast of the island and the western coast of Guangdong province, sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning.
 
 
 


First typhoon to hit mainland China this year due to reach Hainan Island later on Monday

A tourist watches the waves at the Gaolong Bay in Wenchang, a coastal city in south China's Hainan Province. Photo: Xinhua

Dark clouds loom above the city of Sanya, on China's Hainan Island on Sunday as the tourist destination awaits the arrival of Typhoon Kujira. Photo: XInhua

Fishermen stand on a raft in the pouring rain as they carry out preparations ahead of Typhoon Kujira, in Qionghai, Hainan. Photo: Reuters

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