More than 900,000 people have fled their homes in China, the government said, as an approaching typhoon lashed northern Taiwan and Japan’s remote southwestern islands on Saturday, toppling trees and leaving tens of thousands without power.
Extreme weather has already wreaked havoc on southern and central China this week, with storms leaving at least 39 dead and causing dozens of rivers to overflow and a reservoir dam to burst.
Typhoon Bavi is expected to make landfall early on Sunday around Wenzhou, a metropolis of nearly 10 million people in the eastern province of Zhejiang, where the city government said 887,801 people had been evacuated from their homes by late Friday.
“The proactive, all-out mobilisation, which is sparing no effort or cost, is undertaken entirely to guard against the (worst-case) scenario,” Wenzhou authorities said in a statement.
Residents used wood to reinforce metal shutters protecting shops and taped windows, with Bavi forecast to bring “exceptionally heavy rains” to eastern Zhejiang and northeastern Fujian province, CCTV footage showed.
Torrential rain further north prompted the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from their homes, the government said, as water discharge from the capital’s Miyun Reservoir was ramped up to capture potential floodwaters.
Streets were largely deserted in northern Taiwan, where most businesses were shut for a second day as wind and rain buffeted the region.
Severe weather kept many residents indoors in Taiwan’s port city of Keelung, but a local breakfast shop owner said he ventured out to deliver food to people still on duty. Typhoon Bavi weakened after striking Guam and the Northern Marianas as a super typhoon, with sustained winds slowing to 137 kilometres per hour.
Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration warned of “extremely torrential rain” across the north and dangerous coastal waves reaching up to 10 metres as the storm skirted the island.
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Death toll rises
In the Philippines, the death toll from landslides and other incidents triggered by heavy rains driven by Bavi rose to 18, most on the southern island of Mindanao.
Nearly 11,000 people across the archipelago fled their homes and dozens of ports remain closed, with 313 vessels taking shelter.
More than 18,000 households and facilities across Okinawa lost power as the typhoon pounded Japan’s remote southwestern islands, with the Miyako region hardest hit.
