Separately, China's national observatory upgraded the alert for Typhoon Cempaka, the seventh typhoon this year and the first to make landfall on the Chinese mainland, to orange level on Tuesday, as downpours affected many areas in southern and northern parts of the country.

The typhoon, which gained power on Monday due to the strengthened monsoon from the southwest and high temperatures in the South China Sea, crossed the coast at Yangjiang in Guangdong province at 9:50 pm Tuesday.

Gales caused by Cempaka were forecast to affect a vast stretch of sea and land, including the Qiongzhou Strait and parts of Guangdong and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in the 24 hours from 2 pm Tuesday, the National Meteorological Center said.

The cyclone is expected to dump up to 220 millimeters of rain on coastal areas in the two regions, roughly one-seventh of Guangdong's annual precipitation.

A red typhoon alert was triggered in Yangjiang, Yangxi, Taishan and Zhongshan in Guangdong. China has a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe level, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

According to local authorities, all 384 fishing boats in the area affected by Cempaka had returned to the harbor in Yangjiang by Tuesday.

Some railway passenger services were suspended in western Guangdong and hundreds of flights to and from the airports in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai were also canceled.

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