More frequent and powerful typhoons are likely to hit Guangdong province from June to November, the South China Sea Marine Prediction Center said yesterday.

Five to seven tropical windstorms and typhoons will hit Guangdong, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and coastal areas of the South China Sea during the period, the center's chief weather forecaster Wang Yongxin told China Daily.

Six typhoons ravaged the region last year, causing losses totaling 4 billion yuan (US$585 million) and killing 148 people.

Two or three of this year's typhoons are forecast to reach a Beaufort wind force scale of at least 15, in which wind speeds reach at least 50-m-per-second, Wang said.

Only one typhoon of such strength, Hagupit, affected Guangdong last year. The typhoon, which made landfall in western Guangdong's Maoming city in September, affected 8.5 million people, authorities reported. It caused losses totaling more than 3 billion yuan, destroying at least 6,000 houses, forestlands and farms.

Guangdong's coastal cities will experience between 85 and 95 days in which ocean waves reach at least 4 m high - qualifying them as "disaster waves" - this year, Wang said. The highest waves of 2009 are expected to exceed 10 m high.

The provincial government said last year's weather was the worst in six decades.

Because this year's typhoons are expected to be even stronger, Wang urged local departments to begin early preparations, taking steps such as consolidating riverbanks and hillsides, and improving emergency systems to enable evacuations at least 18 hours before a weather disaster.

(China Daily March 24, 2009)