Government media reported that Hurricane Bavi made landfall in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang late Saturday night.
More than 1.7 million people were evacuated as the country prepared for Bavi, which is expected to move northwest after landfall, with its intensity gradually weakening.
Bavi had previously lashed Japan’s southern islands with heavy rains and strong winds, and life in Taiwan had come to a near standstill.
Winds, heavy rain ravage Taipei
In Taiwan, the storm “led to the evacuation of more than 10,000 people at risk of landslides and more than 150,000 homes without power,” DW’s Taiwan correspondent Rick Glauert said.
Authorities canceled more than 1,100 domestic and international flights, while schools and offices were closed for two days.
Although the storm has been downgraded to a super typhoon as it moved westward, “winds of more than 100 kilometers per hour and rainfall of more than a meter are affecting the capital, Taipei, downing trees and power lines, flooding rivers and causing local flooding,” Glauert reported.
Thousands of people in Japan without electricity
In Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture, the typhoon devastated the Sakishima island chain with winds of up to 144 kilometers (90 mi) per hour.
More than 24,000 homes have lost power, while 345 flights have been canceled and ferry services suspended.
Bavi causes death and destruction in the Philippines
The storm, which began as a “super typhoon” in the US Pacific territories of Guam and the Northern Marianas last week, also triggered floods and landslides in the Philippines, killing at least 17 people, while nine people were missing in the southern island of Mindanao.
Ten people were killed in a landslide in Malapatan town in Sarangani province, while two people drowned in Bukidnon province. Five other people were killed in a landslide in Lanao del Sur, while at least four were injured, the Philippines’ meteorological agency said.
More than 500,000 people have been affected by the storm, with more than 11,000 forced to flee their homes.
Edited by: Carl Sexton
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