Typhoon Bavi caused landslides and flooding over the weekend as it made landfall in eastern China, where the authorities evacuated almost two million people in anticipation of the strongest storm to hit the country this year.
The typhoon touched down in the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang Province at around 11:20 p.m. on Saturday, lashing the area with winds of almost 90 miles per hour. It made a second landfall in the city of Wenzhou, also in Zhejiang, around midnight.
Across the province, 1.7 million people were evacuated, many of them by bus, according to the state broadcaster CCTV. The neighboring province of Fujian also moved 180,000 people out of areas expected to bear the brunt of the storm.
In southeast Zhejiang, torrential rain caused the Nanxi River to overflow, flooding villages and farmland, according to China’s Meteorological Administration. Video posted by the state-run Zhejiang Media Group showed cars and the first floors of homes in a village near the river submerged in muddy waters as residents waited for rescue on upper floors.
On Sunday, the giant storm — which at one point had spanned 620 miles, roughly the size of France — had shrunk. The meteorological agency said on Sunday that the typhoon had moved inland and weakened to a severe tropical storm with winds up to 62 miles per hour.
The weather agency said the center of the storm was over the city of Ningguo in the inland province of Anhui on Sunday and would continue to cause torrential rain in Anhui, Zhejiang and Fujian, as well as in Jiangsu, Shandong and parts of northeastern China.
Across eastern China, airlines canceled more than 1,200 flights scheduled for Sunday, according to CCTV. Several cities in Zhejiang and Fujian, as well as in Guangdong in the south and Hubei in the center of the country, have suspended work, school and public transport.
Before hitting China, Typhoon Bavi left at least 17 people dead in the Philippines, where it was known as Typhoon Inday, the country’s state news agency reported on Saturday.
It also battered Japan’s southern islands and passed north of Taiwan on Saturday, where it dumped 30 inches of rain in Miaoli County in the west. Local officials in Taiwan said 135 people had been injured.
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