SHANGHAI (AFP) - Three people were killed and six others injured in Shanghai when a shop signboard toppled onto a crowded sidewalk in a popular shopping district amid heavy rain triggered by Typhoon Yagi.

The accident occurred on Sunday (Aug 12) night on busy Nanjing East Road in the city center, a few hundreds metres from Shanghai's historic Bund riverfront district, a statement by city authorities said.

Security camera footage broadcast by state-run China Central Television (CCTV) showed a heavy section of signage above a shop break off without warning and plummet edge-wise into a group of pedestrians.

Three were killed. The six who were hurt did not suffer life-threatening injuries, city authorities said.

CCTV quoted a witness as saying that a five-year-old child was among the dead.

It took 16 people to lift the sign off of the victims, CCTV added.

Typhoon Yagi battered parts of the Philippines before heading north towards eastern China.

It made landfall in coastal Zhejiang province south of Shanghai late on Sunday night, after authorities had evacuated more than 200,000 people in ten cities in the province as a precaution.

No reports of major damage or casualties in China have emerged.