A typhoon with winds up to 100 mph - around 160 km/h - has hit the Chinese coast south of Shanghai.

Typhoon Chan-hom made landfall in Zhoushan, just east of the port of Ningbo in Zhejiang province, China Central Television reported.

Almost one million people were evacuated, hundreds of flights cancelled and ships ordered back to port as it approached.

China's national weather service says it could be the most powerful storm the country has seen in more than 60 years.

Chan-hom was initially deemed a super-typhoon but was downgraded at midday on Saturday to severe.

More than 960,000 people were moved to safety from coastal areas, the official Xinhua News Agency reported

All flights to and from Zhoushan were cancelled and bus services and speedboat ferry services halted.

The Chinese railway service said more than 100 trains between the region's cities had also been suspended.

Elsewhere in Zhejiang, 388 flights were cancelled in Hangzhou, 34 in Ningbo and 37 in Wenzhou, along with inter-city bus services.

Some 20 people were reportedly injured when Chan-hom passed over islands in southern Japan.

It also dumped rain on the northern Philippines and was expected to pass by Taiwan, where several flights were suspended.

The stock market and public offices in the Taiwanese capital Taipei were closed on Friday as a precaution.