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BEIJING (Reuters) - Nearly half a million fled as a super typhoon, the strongest to threaten China in 40 years, churned toward the country's southeast cost on Thursday.
Typhoon Saomai, one of three storms to have hit East Asia in the past few days, has already dumped heavy rain on Taiwan and was hours from an expected landfall between Hong Kong and Shanghai, just south of the booming city of Wenzhou.
Storm tracker Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com) graded Saomai a category five "super" typhoon -- its highest category -- and put its position at 26 degrees Latitude and 123.7 degrees Longitude at 0219 GMT. Chinese state television said it was the strongest typhoon to threaten China in 40 years.
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"Some meteorologists said that the typhoon might grow stronger," China's Xinhua news agency said, adding that it could be fueled by remnants of the weakening and west-headed tropical storm Bopha.
The center of Saomai, which means morning star in Vietnamese, was 220 km (130 miles) southeast of Wenzhou at 0100 GMT, and was moving northwest at about 25 km (16 miles) per hour, the city's weather bureau said on its Web site (www.wz121.com).
Wenzhou's airport would close at 0330 GMT and about 300 passengers were already stranded because of canceled flights, a manager at the airport said.
"We don't know when we will open again," the manager, surnamed Zhou, told Reuters by telephone. "The wind is only fitful but rain is really heavy here." Airlines in Taiwan also canceled some domestic and international flights even though the island escaped the brunt of the storm.
Wenzhou, once a prosperous foreign treaty port and a manufacturing center of Zhejiang province, has a central population of 1.3 million, but there are 7.4 million in the greater Wenzhou area.
Zhejiang had already evacuated 167,000 people and the neighboring province of Fujian had evacuated 266,000, Xinhua said, as heavy rain, strong winds and a high tide hit the area.
Officials in Wenzhou's Cangnan county resorted to television, Internet, text messaging and even two satellite phones to alert residents about Saomai. They also prepared 30 gongs, a traditional instrument in ancient China to warn people of disasters, the local government said on its Web site (www.cncn.gov.cn). <IFRAME style="OVERFLOW: hidden" name=side_mod src="http://today.reuters.com/sponsoredby/newsflash.aspx?flashpath=http://today.reuters.com/media/editorial/midarticle/topNews_3headlines_v2.swf&akamaize=n&newstype=topN ews&count=3&nindex=0&ndates=f&nblurbs=f&npics=f&wi dth=175&height=130&edition=US&gifPath=&clickTag=" frameBorder=0 width=175 scrolling=no height=130></IFRAME>
Much of south China has been repeatedly battered by typhoons and tropical storms this year, with hundreds of people killed by rainstorms, mudslides and floods.
Tropical storm Bilis killed more than 600 last month and typhoon Prapiroon killed about 80 last week.
Tropical storm Bopha fizzled to the south of Taiwan this week and another veered toward the east of Japan. Typhoons and tropical storms are common in Taiwan, southeast China and the Philippines during a season that lasts from July to October.
Typhoon Saomai, one of three storms to have hit East Asia in the past few days, has already dumped heavy rain on Taiwan and was hours from an expected landfall between Hong Kong and Shanghai, just south of the booming city of Wenzhou.
Storm tracker Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com) graded Saomai a category five "super" typhoon -- its highest category -- and put its position at 26 degrees Latitude and 123.7 degrees Longitude at 0219 GMT. Chinese state television said it was the strongest typhoon to threaten China in 40 years.
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"Some meteorologists said that the typhoon might grow stronger," China's Xinhua news agency said, adding that it could be fueled by remnants of the weakening and west-headed tropical storm Bopha.
The center of Saomai, which means morning star in Vietnamese, was 220 km (130 miles) southeast of Wenzhou at 0100 GMT, and was moving northwest at about 25 km (16 miles) per hour, the city's weather bureau said on its Web site (www.wz121.com).
Wenzhou's airport would close at 0330 GMT and about 300 passengers were already stranded because of canceled flights, a manager at the airport said.
"We don't know when we will open again," the manager, surnamed Zhou, told Reuters by telephone. "The wind is only fitful but rain is really heavy here." Airlines in Taiwan also canceled some domestic and international flights even though the island escaped the brunt of the storm.
Wenzhou, once a prosperous foreign treaty port and a manufacturing center of Zhejiang province, has a central population of 1.3 million, but there are 7.4 million in the greater Wenzhou area.
Zhejiang had already evacuated 167,000 people and the neighboring province of Fujian had evacuated 266,000, Xinhua said, as heavy rain, strong winds and a high tide hit the area.
Officials in Wenzhou's Cangnan county resorted to television, Internet, text messaging and even two satellite phones to alert residents about Saomai. They also prepared 30 gongs, a traditional instrument in ancient China to warn people of disasters, the local government said on its Web site (www.cncn.gov.cn). <IFRAME style="OVERFLOW: hidden" name=side_mod src="http://today.reuters.com/sponsoredby/newsflash.aspx?flashpath=http://today.reuters.com/media/editorial/midarticle/topNews_3headlines_v2.swf&akamaize=n&newstype=topN ews&count=3&nindex=0&ndates=f&nblurbs=f&npics=f&wi dth=175&height=130&edition=US&gifPath=&clickTag=" frameBorder=0 width=175 scrolling=no height=130></IFRAME>
Much of south China has been repeatedly battered by typhoons and tropical storms this year, with hundreds of people killed by rainstorms, mudslides and floods.
Tropical storm Bilis killed more than 600 last month and typhoon Prapiroon killed about 80 last week.
Tropical storm Bopha fizzled to the south of Taiwan this week and another veered toward the east of Japan. Typhoons and tropical storms are common in Taiwan, southeast China and the Philippines during a season that lasts from July to October.