BEIJING, July 16  -- China's southern regions are bracing for more rainstorms as typhoon Rammasun approaches from the South China Sea, the nation's meteorological and flood-control authorities said on Wednesday.

The National Meteorological Center forecast that Rammasun is likely to make landfall in the coastal areas of Guangdong and Hainan provinces on early Friday morning, bringing intense rainstorms to these regions as well as the neighboring provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Fujian and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Rainstorms are expected to last from July 17 to 20 in these regions.

The country's top flood-control and drought-relief authority announced on Wednesday it has launched an emergency response for the nearing typhoon. It has also sent eight working teams to assist local authorities' efforts in coping with the typhoon.

Rainstorms lashed central China's Hunan Province and southwest China's Guizhou Province earlier on Monday and Tuesday, affecting over 1 million people, with many of them relocated and hundreds of homes destroyed.