Chinese authorities evacuated more than 400,000 people in Shanghai as the most powerful typhoon in 75 years bore down closing airports and disrupting rail and road travel.

BANGKOK (AP) — Shanghai’s airports were canceling hundreds of flights Sunday as they brace for impact from Typhoon Bebinca, which is due to make landfall in the early hours of Monday morning, the authorities said.

STORY: The bustling financial hub of Shanghai was brought to a complete standstill by Typhoon Bebinca on Monday (). The Category 1 storm marks the most powerful tropical cyclone to directly hit the city of 25 million in more than seven decades.

Officials in China moved some 414,000 people out of the way in Shanghai before the strongest storm in decades flooded roads and cancelled flights.

Packing top wind speeds of 151 kph (94 mph) near its eye, Bebinca landed in the city of nearly 25 million around 7:30 a.m. (2330 GMT), state media reported, the strongest storm to strike Shanghai since Typhoon Gloria in 1949.

Typhoon Bebinca, the strongest typhoon to hit Shanghai since 1949, made landfall early today, prompting evacuations and cancellations of flights. Hundreds of flights were cancelled at the Shanghai airport starting from Sunday. In Hangzhou, about 170km (106miles) southwest of Shanghai, authorities were planning to cancel more than 180 flights.

Typhoon Bebinca struck Shanghai on Monday morning as a Category 1 storm, marking the most powerful storm to hit the city in over seven decades. The storm landed early Monday morning with wind speeds of nearly 100 mph,

Typhoon Bebinca has smashed into Shanghai with more than 400,000 people having to be evacuated in what is claimed to be the strongest storm to hit the Chinese city in more than 70 years.