China braces for powerful typhoon after week of deadly storms

Typhoon Bavi is approaching China’s east coast after passing north of Taiwan, prompting mass evacuations and emergency preparations. The storm follows deadly flooding and severe weather that killed 50 people this week across Guangxi and Hubei provinces, raising fresh safety concerns

Beijing: A powerful typhoon was heading toward China’s east coast Friday, the latest in a series of deadly storms that have already claimed 50 lives this week in two other parts of the country.

Typhoon Bavi, with maximum sustained winds of 162 kilometres per hour, was first expected to pass north of Taiwan, bringing heavy rains to the island of 23 million people from Friday night into Saturday.

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Schools were closed Friday in Taipei, the island’s capital, and fishing boats have been tied up close together in ports in northern Taiwan. Many flights to Japan, Hong Kong and other destinations have been cancelled through Saturday, though some were still scheduled, Taiwan’s Central News Agency said.

The typhoon’s current northwest track would take it over some remote Japanese islands before passing to Taiwan’s north on Saturday. It is forecast to make landfall Saturday night south of Shanghai, near the border between Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.

More than 17,000 people have been evacuated in Zhejiang and 170,000 rescue workers placed on standby, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Fujian has suspended some ferry routes because of strong winds and rough seas and called for fishing boats to return to port.

Bavi has weakened from supertyphoon strength earlier this week, when it brought violent winds to Saipan and other US territories in the Pacific.

In southern China, authorities announced Thursday that 39 people had died in flooding from Tropical Storm Maysak, which drenched parts of the Guangxi region for days with record rainfall.

The rains breached reservoirs, including the dramatic collapse of part of a dam in Hengzhou that inundated a wide area with fast-flowing muddy water. The floods stranded people on the second and higher floors of buildings for days, many without power, until rescuers could reach them.

Another 11 people died in central China when severe thunderstorms and tornadoes wreaked havoc in Hubei province on Monday night.

Separately, a landslide killed 21 forestry workers in western China’s Gansu province on Tuesday in a disaster that was not storm-related.