Super Typhoon Bavi, one of the most powerful storms in years, is bearing down on Taiwan and China's eastern coast as the country battles some of its worst flooding in recent memory, with 39 people dead in separate weather disasters across multiple provinces.
Bavi, currently measuring nearly 1,000km at its widest point – roughly the width of France – is forecast to skirt northern Taiwan before making landfall in China's eastern Fujian province on Saturday evening, according to China's National Meteorological Centre.
Taiwan's president Lai Ching-te urged people to prepare emergency supplies, sharing a video about how to assemble a grab bag that can sustain life for three days.
The island has suspended ferry services to outlying islands, closed tourist attractions, and put traffic restrictions in place.
If Bavi maintains its forecast intensity, it will become the most powerful typhoon to strike this region since Super Typhoon Kong-rey in 2024, according to AccuWeather. It would also be the largest storm by size to hit Taiwan since 1987, Jason Chang, a forecaster with the Central Weather Administration, told Reuters, adding that storms of this size had been "fairly rare in recent years”.
Winds eased overnight to just under 200km per hour but the storm remained exceptionally dangerous.
“Some loss of wind intensity is anticipated starting Thursday, but Bavi will remain a dangerous storm as it impacts Taiwan and eastern China later Friday into Monday," Jason Nicholls, international forecasting expert for AccuWeather, said.
Bavi previously caused catastrophic damage on the US island of Rota in the Northern Mariana Islands, where its eyewall made a direct hit last Monday with maximum sustained winds of 180 miles per hour, leaving most of the island's 1,500 residents without power and communications. It also brought more than 20 inches of rain to Guam.
Scientists said the storm had been turbocharged by exceptionally warm ocean water. Sea surface temperatures across the western Pacific are 2-3C above average for this time of year and up to 4C above average along the coasts of China, Taiwan and Japan.
Bavi rapidly intensified from a modest tropical system into a category five equivalent in less than 48 hours as it drew energy from ocean water temperatures of 29-32C.
"We should pay much attention to Bavi as it has spent a long time intensifying over the open Pacific, extracting energy from the warm ocean and accumulating large amounts of moisture," said Xiangbo Feng, a research scientist in tropical cyclones at Imperial College London. "When it makes landfall or gets close to coastal regions, the damage could be catastrophic."
Taiwan's mountainous terrain means rainfall may reach up to 1,000mm within two days, more than London receives in a year and a half. Officials in Taipei warned of wind gusts of up to 149km per hour and 400mm of accumulated rainfall in the capital alone during the peak of the storm.
Landslide-prone routes, including the Suhua and Beiyi highways, are under close monitoring. Japan's meteorological agency separately urged residents of Okinawa to remain on high alert through Friday and Saturday for violent winds, landslides, flooding, and storm surges.
Bavi is approaching just when China is reeling from its worst flooding in years. A landslide triggered by heavy rain killed at least 21 people in the western province of Gansu this week, while Typhoon Maysak, the country's first of the year, killed at least six in the southern region of Guangxi, burst a reservoir dam and forced the evacuation of 480,000 people.
Thunderstorms and gale-force winds killed another 11 people and injured more than 330 in the central province of Hubei, and damaged nearly 5,000 homes.
China officially started its annual flood season on 1 July. Meteorologists warn the Asian country faces "complex" disaster prevention challenges this year due to the combined effects of global warming and the expected emergence of El Niño, which may increase temperatures and fuel frequent and intense typhoons.
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