Chinese cities postpone school opening due to Typhoon Saola

GUANGZHOU, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Multiple cities in south China's Guangdong Province have delayed the start of the new school semester and suspended train operations with Typhoon Saola approaching.

Shantou, Shanwei, Jieyang and Chaozhou are among the cities that have required primary schools, middle schools and kindergartens to postpone their opening date for the new semester to Monday.

The use of Guangdong sections of railway lines, including the Guangzhou-Shenzhen intercity line and the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed railway line, is set to be suspended from Thursday to Monday, according to the China Railway Guangzhou Group Co., Ltd.

To cope with the typhoon, the provincial flood, drought and typhoon control headquarters raised its emergency response to Level II at 8 a.m. Thursday.

In Shanwei, where the typhoon is likely to make landfall on Friday, the city's flood, drought and typhoon control headquarters on Thursday ordered the suspension of school, construction, production, transportation and business operations from Friday until an exit from the Level I emergency response to the typhoon.

China's national observatory on Thursday renewed a red alert for Typhoon Saola, the most severe warning in its four-tier typhoon warning system, as the ninth typhoon of this year is expected to bring gales and heavy rain to southern and eastern parts of the country.

It will make landfall somewhere in the coastal areas stretching from Guangdong's Huilai County to Hong Kong on Friday afternoon or Friday night, or move west by south and pass through the waters of eastern Guangdong without making landfall, the National Meteorological Center said in a statement.