Typhoon Bavi brings heavy rain, flooding risks and transport disruptions

Residents try to get through a flooded road in the aftermath of Typhoon Bavi in Yueqing City, eastern China’s Zhejiang Province, Sunday

Chinese authorities have stepped up flood control and disaster relief measures as Typhoon Bavi continued to affect large parts of the country on Sunday, bringing heavy rainfall, strong winds and disruptions to transportation.

Although the storm has weakened after making landfall twice in Zhejiang province, meteorologists warned that its circulation and moisture supply will continue to fuel extreme weather across several regions.

At 9 p.m. on Sunday, Bavi’s center was located in Chuzhou, Anhui province, with maximum sustained winds of 83 km/h. The storm was forecast to move northwest before turning northeast over eastern Anhui yesterday and crossing the Shandong Peninsula into the northern Yellow Sea today, where it is expected to weaken further and become an extratropical cyclone.

Despite the weakening, authorities warned that the storm’s remaining circulation, combined with moisture from the southwest monsoon, could continue to bring heavy rain and strong winds to parts of East China, North China and Northeast China through today.

The storm has already caused record rainfall in several areas. A total of 246 national weather stations recorded extreme torrential rain, with one station in Yueqing, Zhejiang, reporting 435 millimeters of rainfall within 24 hours, exceeding its previous record.

Authorities in Zhejiang said more than 1.7 million people had been evacuated by Saturday morning, while Fujian evacuated more than 180,000 residents from high-risk areas. MDT