Typhoon Hits South China, No Casualties Reported

A powerful typhoon plowed into a densely populated area of south China Wednesday, triggering a "once-in-a-century storm tide" in several cities, state media said.

Authorities evacuated more than 100,000 people before typhoon Hagupit made landfall around dawn. The storm killed at least eight people in the Philippines earlier in the week.

Streets were deserted and shops and businesses shuttered as the storm uprooted trees and brought down billboards in cities across the booming southern Chinese province of Guangdong, including Maoming where the center of the storm made landfall.

The state news agency Xinhua said a fishing boat sank but no casualties were reported.

It described typhoon Hagupit as "the worst to hit Guangdong in more than a decade," but it was not clear by what gauge it was measuring the storm when typhoons in the past have triggered heavy death tolls.

High winds destroyed a petrol station along the Zhanjiang section of State Highway 325 and a factory under construction. The local government said no casualties were reported in either accident.