A total of 189,033 people had been evacuated to safe areas in the southern island province of Hainan as of early Saturday morning after tropical storm Nock-Ten landed on the island late Friday afternoon, China's flood control authorities said Saturday. The storm brought strong winds and heavy rains, leaving one person injured and 148 units of housing damaged along coastal villages in Hainan's Guangcun Town, Xinhua quoted the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters as saying. But the headquarters received no damage reports from nearby Guangdong Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which also experienced heavy rainfall. On early Saturday morning, the storm entered the sea in the east of Beibu Bay after passing Hainan's Changjiang County and is expected to head for coastal areas north of Vietnam, it said. Nock-Ten, the eighth storm and the most powerful one to hit China so far this year, was recorded as packing winds of up to 28 meters per second when it landed at Longlou Town in the city of Wenchang at 5:40 p.m. Friday. At least 31 people in the Philippines died as a result of the storm.
