China said Monday it had temporarily averted a toxic chemical spill at a plant on its northeast coast, but remained on alert as a tropical storm that has killed three people in South Korea approached.

Workers managed to repair a dyke protecting a chemical plant after it was breached by high waves in the province of Liaoning, which has been lashed by torrential rain as the storm nears.

Residents near the Fujia Group plant in the port city of Dalian had been evacuated as a precaution, the state Xinhua news agency said in a report confirmed by an official with the Liaoning border police.

The official, who refused to be named, would not provide further details when contacted by AFP.

Workers were continuing to dump rocks and concrete onto the dyke breaches to make sure water did not gush through again, Xinhua said.

Authorities did not say which chemicals had been in danger of spilling from the plant, which makes paraxylene -- a flammable, carcinogenic liquid used in the production of polyester films and fabrics, it added.

Torrential downpours and high winds unleashed by Muifa -- which was a typhoon before it gradually weakened to a tropical storm -- have already wreaked havoc in China and in neighbouring South Korea.

The storm is currently still at sea. It had originally been expected to make landfall in Liaoning province, but the national meteorological centre predicted in its latest weather report it would now hit North Korea on Monday evening.

Muifa drenched Shanghai over the weekend, triggering hundreds of flight cancellations and prompting authorities to call fishing boats back to port.

In neighbouring Zhejiang province, one person went missing after a boat sank, and the storm destroyed nearly 170 houses.

Further up north in the province of Shandong, more than 100,000 people were moved to safety when the storm passed by, local authorities said.

US oil giant ConocoPhillips was also forced to suspend clean-up operations on a two-month-old oil spill in Bohai Bay off the coast of Shandong due to Muifa, the firm said in a statement.

"Clean-up activities will resume as soon as it is safe to do so," it added.

Muifa also left four people dead and two missing as it battered nearby South Korea with strong rain and winds that toppled hundreds of power lines, signposts and trees.

Power was cut to 320,000 houses in southwestern provinces, while roads, port facilities and breakwaters were destroyed in dozens of locations.

A 76-year-old fisherman was found dead Sunday on the southern island of Wando on the southern tip of South Jeolla province, while trying to moor a boat.

Two more people died in the same province while another was reported dead in the southern port city of Busan following torrential rain and strong winds.

Two people are still missing after being swept away by stormy seas.

Authorities in Dandong, a border city in Liaoning, have set up more than 750 temporary shelters that are capable of accommodating more than one million people in anticipation of the storm, Xinhua reported.

Thousands of soldiers are also on standby to conduct rescue and relief work after Muifa passes, it said.

The city stands on the border with North Korea, which is still reeling from summer rains and floods that have killed 30 people, destroyed more than 6,750 houses and inundated more than 48,000 hectares (120,000 acres) of farmland.

But so far, the storm has not caused as much damage as initially feared.

Authorities had expressed concern that Muifa could cause destruction similar to that unleashed by Typhoon Saomai in 2006, which was the worst to hit China in 50 years and killed at least 450 people.

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