Pingtan county in east China's Fujian province launched its first-grade emergency response mechanism ahead of the typhoon which landed on the province's central-northern coast on Saturday.

Torrential rains have lashed Pingtan since Saturday night with precipitation of up to 250 millimeters for some areas.

Soulik, the seventh typhoon of the year, landed in New Taipei City and Yilan county in Taiwan, with scale 15 winds (45 meters per second), and the national meteorological office downgraded Soulik from a strong typhoon to a regular one at 10:00 am on Saturday.

On Friday, Pingtan county officials ordered all the departments to beef up safety measures ahead of Soulik and to give the public updated and first-hand information.

As it braced for the typhoon, the local civil affairs bureau inspected shelters, the storage of disaster relief supplies, and also signed deals with several supermarkets to provide food for those in need during and after the typhoon's landing.

Fishing boats carrying 340 fishermen working in waters off Pingtan were ordered to return and the fishermen were evacuated to a safer location in the town of Suao, in northwestern Pingtan.

All tourist attractions in Pingtan, including the Longfengtou Bathing Beach, were closed on Friday, and tours were canceled. The Taiwan food court and a sand sculpture zone, both of which are part of the ongoing sand sculpture festival, were closed over the weekend.

The preventative measures taken by the authorities also include a halt in the construction work of the Yuping Interchange, and most of the workers were transferred to a nearby school. Disaster relief packages - including raincoats, flashlights and sandbags - were prepared.

The Jinjing Bay Business Operation Center in Beicuo town called for supervision of its construction site and a thorough cleanup of drainage ditches in order to avoid any security risks.

The urban construction department authorities set up an emergency rescue team to provide a timely service in case of any accidents, and scaffolding in some areas in downtown Pingtan were fastened or removed on Friday.

Passenger vehicles were prohibited from driving on the Pingtan Haixia Bridge, where the gales climbed up to force 10, and other vehicles were ordered to move at a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour, said the Flood Control and Drought Relief Office.

A 600-meter section of the seawalls in Yupan village, on the eastern coast of the county, were consolidated with sandbags on Thursday, with the aim of protecting villagers and also the 166,666 square meters of mariculture zone behind the dikes.

In addition, Jiaxing Agricultural Ltd injected 80 tons of fair-price vegetables into the market to keep prices stable and ensure the supply.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Niva Whyman