TAIPEI, Taiwan — Typhoon Aere lashed northern Taiwan on Tuesday, closing schools, grounding flights to northeast Asia and dumping rain that threatened to cause deadly flash floods and landslides. Rough seas have killed five fishermen in Taiwan and two children in Japan, officials said.

Aere's eye was originally expected to pass over Taipei, but the storm changed course slightly and was whirling just north of Taiwan's northern tip, the Central Weather Bureau said. But the typhoon's outer winds were expected to sweep over half of the leaf-shaped island, drenching soggy mountain slopes prone to mudslides.

The storm was also expected to churn past the busy port of Keelung as well as Hsinchu — home to Taiwan's world-leading computer chip manufacturers — before roaring west to China, the bureau said.

China evacuated 249,000 people from coastal areas, the government said Wednesday.

Aere was expected to come ashore today in Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai. It would be the second-strongest storm to hit China this season after Typhoon Rananim, which killed at least 164 people and devastated the coast south of Shanghai.

Evacuations were ordered Tuesday in Zhejiang, and nearly 31,500 fishing boats were called back to port, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Packing winds of 80 mph, Aere was 136 miles east of Taiwan on Tuesday afternoon, the bureau said. Gusts were hitting 102 mph. Some areas recorded 22 inches of rain in the past 24 hours, the bureau said.

As sheets of rain soaked the capital, schools, offices and financial markets closed. Shopkeepers put tape on their windows.

High waves capsized a Keelung-bound fishing boat from Hong Kong on Monday, the coast guard said. Three fishermen were washed away, while the captain died later, officials said.

Another fishermen died off the southern coast Sunday when his small boat flipped over in rough seas whipped up by Aere, which means "storm" in the language of the Marshall Islands.

Japanese coast guard officials said Tuesday that high waves swept away two sisters, ages 12 and 7, who were swimming near Japan's southern Amami-Oshima islands. Their bodies were recovered late Monday, the coast guard said.

About 200 fishermen from China waited out the storm at a fishing shelter near Keelung's port. Some watched television as others played mahjong or got their hair cut.

Officials at Taipei's international airport said that flights to Southeast Asia were still operating, but some to Northeast Asia were grounded. Korean Air called off flights to South Korea, and Japan Asia Airways canceled four flights to Japan. United Airlines suspended a Tokyo-Taipei flight.

The storm was lumbering along at 6 mph and was about 105 miles northeast of Taiwan's northern tip on Tuesday night.

Storms frequently hit this island of 23 million people. Last month, typhoon Mindulle killed 29.