Among some 1,500 injured, more than 100 had been seriously hurt late Thursday, while some 60 people had been trapped aboard beached fishing boats as waves pounded the shore, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Some 400,000 people were evacuated from coastal areas as the most powerful typhoon in seven years slammed east China, it said.

Typhoon Rananim made landfall at 8:00 pm (1200 GMT) in Wenling city on the coast of Zhejiang province, about 85 miles south of Shanghai, and was moving northwest, an official from the Central Meteorological Observatory told AFP.

The eye of the typhoon was moving at about 25 kilometers (15.6 miles) per hour and was expected to rip through Ningbo, Shaoxing, Jinhua and Hangzhou cities before reaching neighbouring Anhui province.

Winds at the center of the storm had been clocked at 160 kilometres per hour, causing hundreds of houses to be leveled near the coast, Xinhua said. "The typhoon has brought strong winds and high seas," an official surnamed Li from Zhejiang's Wenling Meteorological Observatory told AFP.

Winds were blowing steadily at around 120 to 140 kilometres per hour although the storm's intensity was expected to lessen through the night, meteorologists in Shanghai said.

Officials in Zhenjiang took no chances and launched emergency programs to evacuate 278,000 people living along the coast in Wenzhou, Taizhou and Zhoushan cities.

Xinhua said 30 percent of coastal homes were too weak to withstand strong winds thousands of houses have been blown away.

"We are evacuating everyone near the coast. The local government will provide food and houses for the people evacuated. The government is guiding the anti-typhoon program," a Zhejiang official earlier told AFP.

Restaurants and entertainment venues on the coast were ordered to close before the storm hit while construction workers and residents in endangered areas were relocated to safe areas, state television reported.

Some ferry services in Shanghai were also suspended, it said.

"We have prepared sand bags and rescue boats. Rescue teams are ready for any emergencies. All cities and counties are preparing for the typhoon," the director of the Ningbo city Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, surnamed Li, said earlier.

Gao Shuanzhu, chief forecaster at the Central Meteorological Station, said earlier Rananim could cause mud flows and landslides.

He warned that gales and torrential rains would also batter other provinces.

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