Shanghai braced for Typhoon Wipha

The typhoon is expected to swipe Taiwan before hitting China

Some 200,000 people are being evacuated from Shanghai as a powerful typhoon barrels towards China's east coast. Read original article.

• Tropical Storm Risk
  
• Xinhua (English)

Residents from the city's exposed areas are being moved to temporary shelters before Typhoon Wipha is expected to make landfall on Tuesday evening.

Tropical Storm Risk forecasters said Wipha would hit the mainland as a category four storm, packing gusts of up to 155 mph (250 km/h).

On Taiwan, which Wipha is due to swipe first, schools and offices were shut.

Shanghai, a city of 14m people, and the coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian to its south have issued typhoon warnings, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

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