Forty-nine people were evacuated from Nanpeng Island on the coast of Guangdong province on Sunday morning as Typhoon Talas approached the region.
According to Reuters, four groups of tourists were rescued by the Ministry of Transport’s Guangzhou-based Nanhai Rescue Bureau.
The tourists were camping on the typically unoccupied island, which sits 35 kilometers east of Yangjiang. They were picked up by rescuers via helicopter and transferred to a nearby ship.
China uses a four-tiered color system to indicate the seriousness of weather, with the colors red, orange, yellow, and blue ranking in order of severity, red being the worst. The national observatory labeled Typhoon Talas a blue alert.
On Sunday morning, the eye of the typhoon moved above the South China Sea, about 60 kilometers southwest of Sanya, on Hainan Island. The National Meteorological Center recorded winds of up to 23 meters per second, according to Reuters.
Talas reached speeds of up to 20 kilometers per hour as it crossed Hainan and Beibu Gulf, and was expected to hit the northern coast of Vietnam sometime this morning.
In coastal Guangdong, 22,901 boats and 39,425 workers were sent to shore, and passenger vessels passing between Guangdong and Hainan were also temporarily stopped, according to Shanghai Daily.
Just last month, Guangdong was ravaged by Typhoon Merbok, causing RMB260 million in damage across the province.
READ MORE: Typhoon Floods Roads, Subway Station in Shenzhen
[Image via Shanghai Daily]
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