After making landfall, the typhoon weakened from a devastating category 4 to a heavy tropical storm, and looked set to bypass Shanghai, China's financial capital and largest city.
Chinese authorities had evacuated more than 2 million people from the heavily-populated coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, and from Shanghai, ahead of what was expected to be the most destructive typhoon in the country in a decade.
They also shut down schools and factories and ordered more than 30,000 ships and fishing boats back to port. Zhejiang authorities put 20,000 servicemen from the People's Liberation Army and other emergency workers on standby.
Xinhua news agency reported one man was killed when his house in southern Zhejiang collapsed early on Wednesday, and three others were hospitalized with injuries.
Wipha made landfall in Cangnan County, south of Wenzhou in the Zhejiang province, destroying 669 houses, disrupting power supplies to 1,867 villages, affecting about 5 million people and resulting in direct economic losses of $38 million, the agency said.
Wind speeds have now slowed to about 83 kilometers per hour (52 mph), the agency reported.
The storm is still expected to travel further down China's east coast over the Yellow Sea and North Korea, and could hit Russia's Pacific coast by about September 21.
