China evacuates 1.8 million as Typhoon Bavi nears Wenzhou

China moved more than 1.8 million people out of Typhoon Bavi’s path as the storm closed in on Wenzhou, a coastal manufacturing center. The mass evacuation, carried out as Bavi approached on Saturday, stretched across Zhejiang province and neighboring Fujian as officials tried to clear vulnerable areas before landfall.

At 0808 GMT, the National Meteorological Center put the storm’s maximum sustained winds at 144 kph, roughly Category 1 hurricane strength, and its center about 200 kilometers southeast of Wenling. Bavi was forecast to make landfall around Wenzhou early on Sunday, after moving through a weather corridor that had already affected Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.

NASA tracked Bavi reaching super typhoon strength in the early hours of July 4 while over ocean temperatures near 30 degrees Celsius. It was the third tropical cyclone in 2026 to reach Category 5 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The rain bands remained dangerous because they spread over a very large area, raising the risk of flooding and landslides after the wind field had begun to ease.

The storm had already battered Japan’s southern Sakishima island chain with heavy rain and violent winds before brushing past northern Taiwan. Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration canceled more than 400 flights, while 87 people were injured, most of them in falls or by impacts from objects. Taiwan also evacuated more than 14,000 people, largely from mountainous areas, and cut service on the main north-south high-speed rail line.

In Zhejiang, more than 1.7 million people had been evacuated, with another 100,000 moved in Fujian. Official city statistics put Wenzhou’s permanent population at 9.85 million at the end of 2024 and 9.90 million at the end of 2025, while its GDP reached 1.02 trillion yuan in 2025.

In the Philippines, 17 people died from heavy rains worsened by the system’s impact.