Tens of thousands of boats in the areas returned to harbour ahead of the storm.

On Friday, the last 12 of 68 people aboard a barge off the Guangdong coast near the city of Yangjiang were brought to safety after being stranded at sea overnight as high winds hampered rescue efforts, Xinhua said.

And 40 vessels carrying around 100 fishermen returned to port in Guangxi on Friday after spending a night at sea as strong winds and rough seas prevented them from reaching the shore, an official said by telephone.

The financial hub of Hong Kong escaped a direct hit from Prapiroon, which means "God of rain" in Thai, but strong winds caused chaos at the airport.

More than 600 flights in Hong Kong were affected, and the airport was choked for a second day with thousands of stranded and tired passengers.

Rail links and ferry services between Hong Kong and the mainland were also suspended, Xinhua said.

Prapiroon was the sixth storm of the season to batter southern China, which is still reeling from tropical storms Bilis and Kaemi. Bilis killed more than 600 people when it struck in July, and was quickly followed by Kaemi, which claimed at least 30 lives.

Guangdong has suffered heavily during this year's highly active typhoon season. The province's worst-hit city, Lechang has suffered 46 deaths since the start of July, with 65 people still missing, and 340,000 people - about 70 percent of its population _ in some way affected by the disasters, Xinhua said. More than 30,000 houses in the city have been destroyed, with half the city inundated by waters up to 5 meters (16 feet) deep, it said.

By late morning, Prapiroon's wind speed had dropped from tropical storm as it dumped rain on the Guangxi region on China's southern coast, the China Meteorological Administration said.

The storm's sustained wind speed slowed to 83 kilometers (51 miles) per hour, down from 118 kph (74 mph) when it came ashore Thursday night, the agency said. Prapiroon was expected to keep moving west or northwest at 13 kph (8 mph).

Heavy rain and wind was forecast through Saturday across the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan and Hainan, China's southernmost island and a popular tourist destination.

Authorities had evacuated about 400,000 residents in low-lying areas of Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan, about 600 kilometers (370 miles) southwest of Hong Kong in the South China Sea, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Ferry services linking Hainan to the mainland were also suspended.

Some 84,000 people were forced to flee their homes in Guangxi, Xinhua said. It didn't give a breakdown of the evacuations in Guangdong and Hainan.

More than 62,000 boats returned to port in the three provinces, and rescue teams were put on alert, Xinhua said.

A number of sailors were rescued from stranded craft on Thursday, including nine Vietnamese taken off a cargo ship, Xinhua said.

Prapiroon killed six people earlier as it passed across the Philippines, and one person in Hong Kong was injured Wednesday when high winds toppled empty cargo containers at a shipping terminal.

Several vessels ran aground and ferry services were suspended.

Hong Kong's airport said hundreds of flights were diverted, delayed or canceled.

The typhoon season started early in China this year, where storms have already killed more than 1,460 people, mainly in the densely populated southeast.

Chinese officials estimate more than 1 million houses have been damaged and millions of hectares (acres) of farmland and forests destroyed.

Prapiroon, named after the Thai rain god, is the region's eighth major storm of the season. It comes in the wake of last week's Typhoon Kaemi, which killed at least 35 people in China and left dozens missing in flooding and landslides.