BEIJING: Typhoon Bavi, the most powerful storm to strike mainland China this year, brought heavy rain to the eastern coast on Sunday (Jul 12) and lashed densely populated cities with violent winds, testing the country’s ability to cope with extreme weather.
Bavi had weakened by Sunday morning to a tropical storm as it pushed inland, but forecasters warned that the France-sized storm system could unleash prolonged and widespread rain across eastern and northern China in the coming days.
Over 2.8 million people have been evacuated, according to a Reuters tally of figures reported by state media.
Of those, more than 2.2 million were in Zhejiang, an economic and technological powerhouse in the world’s second-largest economy. There have been no official reports of deaths or injuries.
Bavi struck Zhejiang’s coastal city of Yuhuan at around 11.20 pm local time on Saturday before making a second landfall in Yueqing, part of the city of Wenzhou, at around midnight.
“The winds were very strong,” Yueqing resident Li Liangxing told Reuters. “We could hear roof tiles and tree branches falling. Of course we were scared, but we live by the sea, so we’re used to it.”
Gesturing toward a flooded canal beside his residential compound, Li said he had never seen the water so high.
“There used to be a walkway there, but now it’s underwater.”
More than 1,300 trees fell across Yueqing, with more than 700 of them uprooted entirely, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The deepest flooding reached roughly half the height of a vehicle tyre.
