Fujian relocates 28,000 in tropical storm alert

South China's Fujian Province has relocated about 28,000 offshore staff to get them out of the path of the approaching tropical storm Hagibis, said provincial authorities on Sunday.

The provincial weather bureau sounded the first typhoon alarm on Saturday morning. Hagibis is likely to make landfall in the coastal areas between Fujian and neighboring Guangdong Province before midnight on Sunday, said the provincial flood control office.

It explained that Hagibis, which escalated from a tropical depression in the South China Sea, was about 180 km south of Fujian's Zhao'an County at 8 a.m. on Sunday, packing gales of 23 meters per second at its eye.

It is expected to move northward at 10 km per hour.

The weather bureaus of Fujian and Guangdong forecast the tropical storm will bring torrential rain to their border region on Sunday and Monday.

Authorities have also warned fishery workers to anchor their vessels and come ashore.

As of 8 a.m. on Sunday, a total of 7,135 ships based in Fujian's Zhangzhou City, which is braced for a direct hit by Hagibis, have harbored in ports.