China was hit by Typhoon Bavi with over 2 million people evacuated, having earlier hit Japan’s southern Sakishima island chain, marking it as the longest-lasting tropical cyclone in Asia-Pacific this year.
Bavi had maximum sustained winds of about 144 km per hour (90 mph), which is equivalent to a Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, and made landfall around 11:20 pm local time on the 11th July, according to the National Meteorological Center.
State media said that more than 1.7 million had been evacuated across Zhejiang province, where Taizhou is located, along with more than 100,000 each from the neighbouring Fujan province and Beijing, and some 34,000 from Shanghai.
Disruption across Far East
Typhoon Bavi covered an area the size of France, forming in the Pacific Ocean thirteen days ago. According to the US Space Agency Nasa, Bavi became a super typhoon in the early hours of July 4 local time while tracking west over the warm ocean. Satellite observations indicated that sea surface temperatures were around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in the region. Bavi was the third tropical cyclone in 2026 to reach the equivalent of category 5 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.
Storms of this size have been “fairly rare in recent years,” Jason Chang, Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration forecaster, told Reuters, adding that Bavi is set to be the largest storm by size to hit the island since 1987.
Taiwan’s main international airport at Taoyuan said Taiwanese airlines had cancelled all Saturday departures because of the typhoon.
Japan Airlines said it had cancelled 50 flights, affecting about 7,600 passengers, while All Nippon Airways cancelled 34 flights affecting around 1,800 travellers, with further cancellations planned for Saturday, said Reuters.
“We should pay much attention to Bavi as it has spent a long time intensifying over the open Pacific, extracting energy from warm oceans and accumulating large amounts of moisture,” said Xiangbo Feng, a tropical cyclone researcher at Imperial College London.
Writing in Yale Climate Connections, meteorologist Jeff Masters said that Bavi is the type of storm that might be expected when a strong El Niño event is building, which is currently the case. El Niño-year typhoons may form farther east, giving them more time over warm water to intensify before curving toward Asia, Masters explained, “resulting in a greater chance of reaching Category 5 intensity.”
Comment from Russell
James Banasik, Head of Connected Risk at Russell said: “We have been discussing this year how El Niño events might have devastating effects across industries and geographies. Bavi unleashed major damage on mainland China, Taiwan and Japan causing major disruption to the aviation, marine and other industries, which are increasingly hi-tech in this part of the world. Specialty class insurance companies and corporates are bracing themselves for the impact on company balance sheets.”
