Super Typhoon Yagi made landfall in Vietnam on Saturday, the meteorological agency said, uprooting thousands of trees, sweeping ships and boats out to sea and killing at least four people in the country.

Before hitting the mainland, the typhoon hit the island Đảo Cô Tô, about 80 kilometres from mainland province Quảng Ninh.

Local authorities said the typhoon was the most severe to hit the island in decades.

It has been named 2024's second-most powerful tropical cyclone in the world and most powerful storm in Asia, categorised by Vietnam's meteorological agency as a level 14 typhoon.

It then landed on Vietnam's Haiphong and Quảng Ninh provinces at 1pm local time, packing winds exceeding 149 kilometres per hour, the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting said.

The government said that as of 5pm, local time, four people had died and 78 had been injured by the typhoon. At least another dozen were missing at sea, according to state media.

Vietnam's northern provinces hit with 'unbelievable' winds

The coastal city of Haiphong, with a population of two million, is so far among the hardest hit by the winds.

Parts of the city experienced power outages on Saturday, authorities said.

Hundreds of cruises were cancelled in Quảng Ninh — which is home to UNESCO World Heritage site Hạ Long Bay — ahead of the storm, state media reported.

The storm ripped off steel roofs from houses in Quảng Ninh, killing three residents, state media said, citing local and national disaster control authorities.

Further inland in Hải Dương province, a man was killed in the street after heavy winds brought down a tree as the storm approached landfall, according to state media.

"It has been years since I witnessed a typhoon this big," Tran Thi Hoa, a 48-year-old woman from Haiphong, said.

"It was scary. I stayed indoors, after locking all my windows. However, the sound of the wind and the rain was unbelievable."

Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh called on local authorities to evacuate residents from dangerous areas before the storm hit. He urged those who did not evacuate to stay indoors.

Around 20,000 people have been evacuated and moved to higher ground in the north of Haiphong, Thái Binh and capital Hanoi, local authorities reported.

Vietnam has evacuated nearly 50,000 people from coastal towns and deployed 450,000 military personnel in total, the government said.

More than 457,000 were mobilised by the Ministry of Defence's rescue and relief department to deal with the fallout from the typhoon.

Some 2,000 vehicles and six planes have been sent to deal with the situation.

Northern Vietnam has been experiencing heavy rains and strong winds since Friday evening, including in Hanoi.

Authorities had pruned trees in Hanoi to make them less susceptible to falling, but wind and rain knocked over several along with billboards in northern cities ahead of the typhoon landing.

Local media also reported that many moored boats were swept out to sea.

A woman was killed in the capital on Friday afternoon when a tree fell in the street after heavy rains.

Four airports in northern Vietnam — including Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport — have been closed at the cost of more than 300 flights, while sailing has been banned since Friday.

High schools were also closed in 12 northern provinces, including in the capital Hanoi.

Philippines, China face aftermath of deadly storm

Yagi killed at least 20 people and left 26 missing in the Philippines this week when it was still classified as a tropical storm.

More than 47,600 people were displaced from their homes in Philippine provinces and domestic flights were disrupted for days, including in Manila.

It caused flooding and landslides on the main island of Luzon before heading into the South China Sea on Wednesday and transforming into a super typhoon.

It swept over southern China as super typhoon, leaving at least three dead and 95 others injured on the country's Hainan island.

Yagi's centre struck Hainan island's city of Wenchang on Friday afternoon, local time.

State broadcaster CCTV said Yagi brought winds of more than 230kph, uprooting trees, cutting power to more than 800,000 homes and prompting the evacuation of around 460,000 people.

Another half a million people in Guangdong province were evacuated before Yagi made a second landfall in the province's Xuwen County on Friday night.

In Hong Kong, more than 270 people were forced to seek refuge at temporary government shelters on Friday and over 100 flights in the city were cancelled due to the typhoon.

Heavy rain and strong winds felled dozens of trees, and trading on the stock market, bank services and schools were halted.

Haikou's meteorological observatory downgraded its typhoon signal from red to orange on Saturday, as the typhoon moved further away from the city.

Southern China is frequently hit by typhoons in the summer and autumn, which form in the warm oceans east of the Philippines and Thailand.

Typhoons in the region are now forming closer to the coast, intensifying more rapidly and staying over land for longer due to climate change, according to a study published in July.

Last week, Typhoon Shanshan slammed into south-western Japan, the strongest storm to hit the country in decades.

Yagi is named after the Japanese word for goat and the constellation of Capricornus.

AFP/Reuters/AP