Chinese authorities say the strongest typhoon to strike China in half a century has killed at least 104 people with 190 others missing.

China's official Xinhua news agency said Typhoon Saomai made landfall Thursday afternoon near the city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, with wind speeds up to 216 kilometers-per-hour.

Most of the deaths are from Zhejiang province where the storm destroyed 18-thousand homes. Two people were reported dead in the city of Fuding in Fujian province.

The storm has been downgraded to a tropical depression and is moving into Jiangxi province.

More than one million people were evacuated from China's coastal regions before the typhoon tore into the area.

Earlier, Saomai skirted the northern coast of Taiwan, but no serious damage or casualties were reported.

Saomai is battering some of the same areas of eastern China devastated last month by Typhoon Bilis, which killed more than 600 people.

A less powerful storm, Tropical Depression Bopha, is off-shore near the western part of China's Guangdong province. The storm passed southern Taiwan Wednesday, but did not cause major damage.

Some information in this story provided by AP and AFP.