Shanghai's 14 million residents are bracing for category 4 typhoon Wipha, which is expected to hit the coastline on Tuesday evening. Photo by city-photo.org
Up to 200 000 people were being evacuated from Shanghai's exposed areas prior to Typhoon Wipha making landfall later in the day on Tuesday.
The typhoon is expected to cross Taiwan, which has shut down all official business, and hit mainland China with wind speeds of up to 250 km/h.
Typhoon warnings have been issued for the city of Shanghai, as well as the Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, state news agency Xinhua said.
The worst storm to hit China in the past decade, Typhoon Winnie, took the lives of 236 people in 1997.