BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Government authorities issued a national early disaster warning Thursday afternoon, asking local civil affairs departments to prepare for the arrival of Typhoon Soulik.
The National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued the alert at 3 p.m., as Soulik is expected to approach Taiwan's east coast early Friday and affect waters off the mainland's coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian near the East China Sea.
Local authorities in Shanghai, as well as the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Henan and Hubei, have been asked to be on duty around-the-clock, strengthen monitoring, issue early warnings, relocate residents in threatened areas, call fishing boats back to port and distribute disaster relief supplies in a timely fashion.
The alert came after a yellow warning for high waves issued by the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center on Thursday morning.
The seventh typhoon to hit China this year, Soulik was located 1,070 km southeast of Taipei, as of 5 a.m. Thursday.
From midday Thursday to midday Friday, the typhoon is expected to whip up sea waves as high as 5 to 8 meters in the southeastern East China Sea and in waters east of Taiwan. It is also expected to create 3 to 5-meter waves near the Diaoyu Islands during the same period.
The forecasting center has urged vessels in affected waters to return to port and cautioned relevant departments to take preventive measures.
China uses a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
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