A POWERFUL typhoon made landfall on the Chinese tropical vacation island of Hainan today after it swept south of Hong Kong.

The storm brought many aspects of life in the region to a halt and forced about a million people in the country’s south to leave their homes.

The Hainan province’s meteorological service said Yagi — earlier packing winds of up to about 152mph near its centre — made landfall in the province's Wenchang city at around 4.20pm local time. It is expected to sweep toward other parts of the island before moving to the Beibu Gulf, it said.

China’s national meteorological authorities said Yagi was the strongest autumn typhoon to have landed in China. They predicted it would make a second landfall in Xuwen County in neighbouring Guangdong province last night.

Ahead of the afternoon landfall, nearly 420,000 residents were relocated in Hainan, and so were more than half a million people in Guangdong, state media said.

The storm brought heavy rain across most of Hainan and some areas faced power outages. 

Strong winds buffeted the province’s iconic coconut trees. People built sandbag barriers outside buildings to guard against possible floods and reinforced their windows with tape, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.