A red alert is in place, and some coastal residents have been evacuated, city authorities said.

The typhoon landed early Monday morning in the coastal area of Lingang New City, in Pudong to the city's east, the China Meteorological Administration said.

It was the strongest storm to hit Shanghai since Typhoon Gloria in 1949, state broadcaster CCTV said shortly after Bebinca made landfall.

The city's 25 million residents have been advised to avoid leaving their homes, and all flights at Shanghai's two main airports are grounded.

Nine thousand residents have been evacuated from Chongming District, an island at the mouth of the Yangtze River, authorities said.

All highways were closed at 1:00 am local time (1700 GMT), and a 40 kilometre (25 mile) per hour speed limit is in place on roads inside the city.

Shanghai's flood control headquarters told CCTV they had already received dozens of reports of incidents related to the typhoon, mostly fallen trees and billboards.

CCTV broadcast footage of a reporter by the coast in neighbouring Zhejiang province, where waves pounded the craggy coastline under leaden skies.

"If I step out into (the storm), I can barely speak," the reporter said.

"You can see that the surface of the sea is just wave after wave, each higher than the last."