Vladivostok authorities brace for approaching typhoon

A decision to cancel all street festivities over the weekend to mark the 142nd birth anniversary of Vladivostok has been taken by the city's administration because of Typhoon Rammasun approach from the southern latitudes of the Pacific, RIA Novosti was told at Vladivostok's administration on Saturday.

The typhoon will hit southern Primorye from the Korean peninsula. Close to midnight on Friday it had already covered all the East China Sea. Wind velocity at the epicentre of the formation is as high as 140 kilometres an hour.

Currently the typhoon is turning north-east and by the evening of July 6 will bring on a heavy storm in the Yellow Sea and on the night of July 7 in the Sea of Japan.

Already one can feel the "moist breath" of the typhoon in southern Primorye, it raining on the coast. Over the next 24 hours Vladivostok and its environs will receive between 12 and 49 millimetres of precipitation with a south-eastern wind blowing at a speed of between 18 and 23 metres a second.

Weathermen forecast that the heaviest rains will fall in the Khasan and Partizansky districts, in Vladivostok and Nakhodka, it was pointed out in the city administration.

The typhoon will make its most impact on Primorye on July 7, the Ivan Kupala festival. But nearer midnight on Sunday the typhoon will ease off, and the rains are expected to gradually cease.