Typhoon Bavi batters east China

Typhoon Bavi, the most powerful storm to strike mainland China this year, brought heavy rain to the eastern coast yesterday and lashed densely populated cities with violent winds, testing the country’s ability to cope with extreme weather.

Bavi had weakened by yesterday 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.

The storm passed northern Taiwan on Saturday, bringing strong winds and driving rain across much of the island. The storm dumped nearly 80 cm (31 inches) of rain in one area in the northern county of Miaoli.

Taiwan’s fire department said yesterday that 134 people had been injured, mainly due to falling off motorbikes, slipping or being struck by objects. It reported no deaths. The transport ministry said 137 international flights had been cancelled yesterday, along with 62 domestic trips.

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 has been no official reports of deaths or injuries.

Bavi struck Zhejiang’s coastal city of Yuhuan at around 11:20 pm (1520 GMT) 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.