The moment a construction elevator shaft falls away from a high-rise building in Hong Kong has been captured on video as the region is battered by Typhoon Mangkhut.

The footage, which appears to be shot from nearby apartment buildings, shows the structure buckling before it plummets towards the ground.

According to local media, the building is a 22-storey housing development project.

Police evacuated 40 residents and no one was harmed, reports say.

Typhoon Mangkhut made landfall in southern China on Sunday after ravaging the northern Philippines, with torrential rain prompting a series of landslides which have left at least 28 people dead.

Nearly half a million people have been evacuated from the seven cities in the province as China's national meteorological centre said that the country's southern region faced a “severe test caused by wind and rain”.

Officials from the centre also urged authorities to prepare for possible disasters.