Typhoon Kujira makes landfall

Typhoon Kujira, the eighth typhoon of 2015, made landfall in south China’s Hainan Province yesterday evening, bringing heavy rain to the drought-hit island. The storm landed in the coastal city of Wanning at 6.50 p.m., packing winds of up to 90 kilometers per hour, the Hainan Meteorological Service said. Kujira weakened into a tropical storm about one hour after landfall. It moved northwestward at a speed of 15 km per hour, with winds of up to 72 km per hour. It was forecast to reach the Beibu Gulf in the early hours of this morning. The island province has evacuated more than 40,000 people, and over 20,000 fishing boats have been called back to harbor. By 7.30 p.m. yesterday, 63 flights were canceled at the Meilan International Airport in Haikou, the provincial capital. Sanya’s Phoenix International Airport canceled 99 flights, affecting the travel plans of 11,000 passengers. Shipping services and passenger trains on the Qiongzhou Strait, which connects Hainan and Guangdong, were suspended yesterday, while high-speed trains between Haikou and Sanya were also halted at 6 p.m. All elementary and middle schools in Haikou City will likewise be closed today, according to the local government. Strong gales and heavy rains hit the northern, central and eastern parts of the island yesterday, with precipitation ranging from 50 mm to 150 mm. The rainy weather will continue until today. “The typhoon did not cause heavy losses as the evacuation was carried out in advance,” said Wu Yunfeng, Communist Party chief of Hele Town, where Kujira landed. The timely rain is expected to help ease a prolonged severe drought which has affected 30 percent of the tropical island, causing drinking water shortages for 130,000 people and 119 small reservoirs to dry up. Kujira is the first typhoon to hit China this year. It formed in the South China Sea on Sunday. The National Meteorological Center yesterday afternoon issued a yellow alert for Typhoon Kujira. It forecast storms will hit Sichuan, Shaanxi, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui and Gansu provinces until tomorrow.

Hong Kong’s inflation rises to 3 percent in May

Hong Kong’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 3 percent year-on-year in May, higher than the 2.8 percent rate in April, mainly due to the increasing prices of fresh vegetables, the statistics department said yesterday. Among the various CPI components, prices for electricity, gas and water jumped 21.9 percent from a year ago, mainly because some households had used up the full amount of government’s one-off electricity charge subsidy. Prices for housing grew 4.2 percent from a year earlier, followed by prices for food increasing 2.8 percent, miscellaneous services 1.8 percent and the alcoholic drinks and tobacco 0.2 percent.