Typhoon Chanchu, packing heavy rain and winds up to 170 kph (106 mph), made landfall between the cities of Shantou and Xiamen in the early morning, the Hong Kong Observatory said.

China?s coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian took the full brunt of the storm.

Eight people were killed in Shantou, where Chanchu, the strongest typhoon on record to enter the South China Sea in May, triggered house collapses and landslides, Xinhua News Agency said. Two children were among the dead, the agency reported, quoting local government sources.

Almost all roads in Shantou were flooded and there were several blackouts, Xinhua also said, adding downpours in Fujian had led to flooding in a number of rivers.

State television news said Chanchu had been downgraded to a tropical storm and was heading northeast at a speed of only 25 kph but it would still bring strong rainfall to China's eastern provinces, including financial hub Shanghai.

In Vietnam, authorities have re-established radio contact with six of the 11 ships carrying more than 90 people that went missing on Wednesday some 160 nautical miles south of China?s Hainan island, then in Chanchu's path.

?Two more ships have sunk but the crews were safe, so we only have 35 people missing now,? Huynh Chin, deputy head of the Red Cross Association in the central Vietnam province of Quang Ngai, told Reuters by telephone.

Typhoons, drawing strength from warm water, roar into China from the South China Sea every year between May and September, losing power once they make landfall.

Xinhua reported that more than 900,000 people in Guangdong and Fujian had been evacuated in the path of Chanchu, which killed at least 37 people when it swept through the Philippines at the weekend.

The eye of the storm crossed the Chinese coast halfway between Hong Kong and Taiwan, both often the victims of direct hits.

An ore-carrying Belgian ship with eight crew members was stranded offshore and a Chinese rescue vessel was expected to reach it on Thursday, state television said.

In Taiwan, rescuers winched to safety the crew of an oil tanker that had run aground off the coast of Kaoshiung after being hit by a large wave, television footage showed.

In the Philippines, Chanchu killed at least 37 people last weekend and ?affected? about 53,300 people.