Typhoon Bavi floods northern China, strands villagers and shuts transport

Floodwaters in Kuancheng, a county in Hebei with about 240,000 residents, rose to more than two metres on roads as Typhoon Bavi drove heavy rain and strong winds into northern China, leaving some vehicles bobbing in the current before they were carried away. CCTV put the number of stranded villagers in Kuancheng at about 1,800 as local authorities moved to relocate and resettle residents.

The flooding reached beyond one county. Roads were submerged in Hebei and neighboring Liaoning province, and social-media videos showed people swimming and paddle-boarding through neighborhood streets as drainage systems and river channels were overwhelmed. In Shenyang, many trains were suspended and more than 30 railway sections were affected, while schools were closed in parts of Jilin.

Officials had already moved to tighten controls as the storm intensified. China’s Ministry of Water Resources and the China Meteorological Administration issued a red alert for flash floods at 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 11, and Hebei authorities required work stoppages, business closures and gatherings to be fully enforced during red-alert conditions. Liaoning issued its own red alert for flash floods, and local authorities in northeast China had activated flood emergency responses in Liaoning and Jilin before the worst flooding reached Kuancheng and Shenyang.

The Ministry of Water Resources later reported that 46 rivers across China were above warning levels from Sunday to Monday after heavy rainfall. The warning level crossings came as Bavi channeled moisture northward and pushed flood risk across Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Anhui, with areas already saturated by earlier downpours facing the greatest pressure.

Northern China’s 2025 flood season brought deadly landslides and evacuations in Hebei and Beijing, leaving four people dead and eight missing and forcing thousands to relocate.