Tropical storm Hagibis hits Guangdong

GUANGZHOU/FUZHOU - Tropical storm Hagibis, China's first in 2014, landed at 4:50 p.m. on Sunday in sea areas of Shantou City in south China's Guangdong Province.

Hagibis made landfall on the coast of Shantou, packing gales of 23 meters per second at its eye and bringing rainstorms to nearby regions, said the provincial meteorological station.

After escalating from a tropical depression in the South China Sea, Hagibis is expected to bring rainstorms to coastal cities such as Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou in Guangdong.

Local railway authorities on Sunday limited the speed of its rail service from Huizhou City to Zhao'an County to about 80 km per hour.

Government authorities of Guangdong have alerted all offshore businesses and workers to suspend their operations.

The neighboring Fujian Province has relocated about 28,000 offshore staff to get them out of the path of the storm.

The weather bureaus of Fujian and Guangdong forecast Hagibis 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.