"Ragasa made landfall along the coast of Hailing Island, Yangjiang City, Guangdong Province around 5 pm (0900 GMT) on September 24," the National Meteorological Centre said.

In Yangjiang, AFP saw ferocious winds ripping signs off buildings, downing trees and destroying fences.

For a period of several hours on Wednesday, the powerful typhoon shook buildings as sheets of rain poured down on the city of more than two million people.

An AFP journalist saw firetrucks driving through mostly deserted streets as the winds whipped branches along the road and toppled motorbikes that had been parked along the pavement.

The weather service said that at the time of landfall, the maximum wind speed near the centre of the storm was 145 kilometres per hour (90 miles per hour).