Nearly half a million residents are being evacuated from their homes in southeastern China as a super typhoon swirls towards them. Typhoon Saomai -- which has already dumped torrential rains on Taiwan -- is expected to make landfall Thursday in China's Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, state-run Xinhua News Agency has reported. The typhoon has been gathering strength as it nears China, and is now a category four storm, packing sustained winds of 216 kilometers per hour (134 miles per hour). One of three storms to have threatened east Asia in the past few days, Saomai is expected to make landfall on China's eastern coast halfway between Hong Kong and Shanghai and close to the city of Wenzhou. Weather agencies are also warning of heavy rains and winds in parts of Taiwan and Japan. Saomai, the Vietnamese word for the planet Venus, will be the eighth big storm to hit China during this year's typhoon season.
