A bus hurtling down the street to crash into a building. Motorcycles spiralling into the air. And a plane lifted clean off one of its wheels.

These were some of the terrifying images of Typhoon Soudelor - billed as the biggest tropical storm of 2015 - captured in a Facebook video posted by news website Shanghaiist on Monday (Aug 10).

The clip, which has been viewed more than 840,000 times, portrayed scenes of devastation as heavy rain and strong winds ravaged parts of eastern China.

While Soudelor has weakened, winds of up to 230 km per hour were recorded at its peak. It made landfall in China on Sunday after hitting Taiwan.

According to authorities, the death toll in the country now stands at 21, with five more people missing. Most of the casualties were reported in the eastern provinces of Anhui and Zhejiang.

Total direct economic losses from the two coastal provinces were estimated at around 8 billion yuan (S$1.78 billion).

Shanghaiist also posted a video of a van being blown away by a tornado spawned from Soudelor in Taiwan's Tainan on Saturday.

The video, taken from a car's dashboard camera, was initally picked up by international media such as the Washington Post.