Soldiers help a fisherman bind tight a fishing boat to prepare for the landing of typhoon Fanapi, in Taizhou, a coastal city of East China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 17, 2010. [Xinhua]
China issued an alert Saturday for typhoon Fanapi, which is likely to land on the coastal regions of Chinese mainland's Fujian and Guangdong provinces after a landfall in Taiwan.
Fanapi, the 11th typhoon to hit China this year, continued strengthening and was expected to become the strongest one this year, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said.
The eye of Fanapi was 500 kilometers southeast from Hualien in Taiwan as of 5 a.m. Saturday, the NMC said.
Moving in a northwest direction at a speed of 15-20 kilometers per hour, Fanapi packed wind up to 162 kilometers per hour at its center, it said.
The typhoon was expected to land on the east coast of Taiwan Sunday morning and would reach the coastal region on the mainland Sunday night or Monday morning, the observatory forecast.
It warned boats in the typhoon affected areas to return to harbor and people to avoid going outside.
