Two million residents of Shanghai, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces were evacuated yesterday as the east coast prepared for the landing of potentially the most destructive typhoon in a decade.

Typhoon Wipha, packing winds of nearly 200 kph at its center, was about 300 km southeast of Wenling - a coastal city in Zhejiang - at 4 PM yesterday, and moving ashore at 25 kmh. It was expected to land in Zhejiang early this morning.

It is likely to maintain its momentum after making landfall, meteorological officials said.

Torrential rain battered Shanghai and neighboring provinces yesterday afternoon, forcing the rescheduling of two Women's World Cup soccer matches.

FIFA has postponed the match between Norway and Ghana from 5 PM today in Shanghai to 5 PM tomorrow in Hangzhou, and a match between Brazil and Denmark in Hangzhou today was put off for 24 hours.

The storm, with gale-force winds and heavy rains, churned past northern Taiwan yesterday, killing one person and forcing schools and offices to close.

"A striking feature of Typhoon Wipha is that it was not weakened by crossing the terrain in Taiwan, and its strength is very intense," said Duan Yihong, deputy director of National Meteorological Center in Beijing.

In Shanghai, the torrential rain caused severe traffic jams and clogged drains with water up to 20 cm deep on many roads yesterday. Some residential areas were flooded, too, as authorities issued typhoon warnings requiring residents to stay home.

Schools have been told to close today and many flights from the city and neighboring airports suspended.

Organizers canceled an opening ceremony for the Shanghai Shopping Festival and a floats parade for the Shanghai Tourism Festival, both scheduled for yesterday.

The city's working safety watchdog ordered poisonous chemicals to be safely stored to prevent leaking. Construction teams were reinforcing scaffoldings with building work on projects suspended.

The deadliest storm to hit the coast in recent years was Typhoon Winnie in 1997, which killed 236 people.

(China Daily / Xinhua News Agency September 19, 2007)