AKIPRESS.COM - A powerful typhoon has slammed into China's Hainan island after sweeping past Hong Kong where it disrupted flights and forced the closure of the stock market and container ports, reports AFP.

Typhoon Kalmaegi buffeted Hong Kong with gusts of up to 159 kilometres per hour as it barrelled west, injuring some 29 people, felling scores of trees and causing floods and a landslide.

The Hong Kong Observatory hoisted the number-eight cyclone warning - the third in a five-tier system - late on Monday, triggering the closure of schools and businesses.

The warning was lowered to a number-three strong wind signal late on Tuesday morning, allowing the stock market to reopen.

In Hainan, more than 90,000 people were evacuated from the east coast of the island as local governments were told to prepare for "disaster-relief operations", the official Xinhua news agency said.

China Southern Airlines said it would cancel all flights to and from the provincial capital Haikou, while ferry services and trains to the mainland across the 30-kilometer Qiongzhou Strait were also suspended, it said.

The China Meteorological Administration had an "orange" alert in place, the second-most severe in the nation's four-tier weather warning system.

An earlier statement, which carried the most severe "red" alert, said that up to 400 centimetres of rain was expected in some coastal areas.

In Hong Kong, authorities were hauling away debris and getting the city back up and running, including clearing a backlog of hundreds of flights that were delayed or cancelled.