More than 300 fishermen were forced to take shelter in southern
China's Nansha Islands to escape stormy seas caused by Typhoon
Hagibis, the Hainan Maritime Affairs Bureau said on Friday.
Xie Chunfu, an official in charge of communication and
navigation, said the bureau had sent out rescue vessels to search
for 25 missing Filipino fishermen.
Among the fishermen safely docked at Nansha, the southernmost
point in China, at least 250 were Chinese. The remainder included
30 Filipinos and seven Vietnamese. The typhoon, the 25th of the
year, has left the islands facing food and drinking water
shortages.
Xie said the Filipino and Vietnamese fishermen were evacuated by
passing Chinese fishing boats on Thursday and Friday.
"Our rescue ships left the Pearl River mouth in Guangzhou on
Thursday afternoon and are expected to arrive there on Saturday,"
he said.
Hagibis, meaning "rapidity" in the Filipino language Tagalog,
blew into to the South China Sea on Wednesday and intensified into
a typhoon on Thursday.
At 8 a.m. on Friday, it was located at a latitude of 11.5
degrees north and a longitude of 110.9 degrees to the east,
according to the China Meteorological Station in Beijing. It was
blowing at 126 kilometers per hour at its eye and was moving toward
the northwest, about 470 km north of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2007)