Typhoon Bavi was heading toward China’s east coast on Friday, and authorities warned of violent winds, torrential rain, landslides and flooding as the storm moved toward Japan’s southwest remote islands, Taiwan and China. The weather system had maximum sustained winds of 155 kph (96 mph), and Reuters said it could be the region’s most destructive storm in years. AP reported maximum sustained winds of around 162 kilometers per hour (101 miles per hour). The storm’s path put millions of ordinary people in the way of decisions made far above them, while the apparatus of emergency management scrambled to contain the damage.
Who Gets Hit First
The storm was first expected to pass north of Taiwan, bringing heavy rains to the island of 23 million people from Friday night into Saturday. Its current northwest track would take it over some remote Japanese islands before passing north of Taiwan on Saturday, and it was forecast to make landfall in China on Saturday night south of Shanghai, near the border between Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. That’s the map of power here: not just wind and water, but the way a giant storm forces whole populations to live under the timetable of weather warnings, shutdowns and evacuations.
Schools were closed Friday in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, and fishing boats were tied up close together in ports in northern Taiwan. Taiwan’s Central News Agency said many flights to Japan, Hong Kong and other destinations had been canceled through Saturday, though some were still scheduled. Taiwan distributed sandbags to residents of Taipei on Friday as Typhoon Bavi barreled in, prompting forecasts of torrential rainfall, violent winds and flooding. AP said Bavi was expected to pass north of Taiwan. Reuters said the storm was expected to hit Taiwan and China on Saturday, and that authorities warned of violent winds, torrential rain, landslides and flooding.
The Machinery of Response
More than 17,000 people had been evacuated in Zhejiang and 170,000 rescue workers were placed on standby, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Fujian suspended some ferry routes because of strong winds and rough seas and called for fishing boats to return to port. Those are the numbers of a state trying to manage a crisis after the fact, moving people, boats and transport lines around once the storm is already closing in. The people at the bottom don’t get to choose the weather, and they don’t get to choose the system that tells them when to leave.
Bavi had weakened from supertyphoon strength earlier in the week, when it brought violent winds to Saipan and other U.S. territories in the Pacific. Even weakened, it still carried enough force to trigger evacuations, flight cancellations and port closures across a wide stretch of East Asia. The storm didn’t ask permission. It just met the infrastructure built to keep everything running until it couldn’t.
A Week of Deadly Storms
AP said the typhoon was approaching Japan’s southwest remote islands, Taiwan and China, with warnings of violent winds, torrential rain, landslides and flooding. AP also said the storm was approaching amid a broader week of deadly storms in China that had already claimed about 50 lives in two other parts of the country. 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. The week’s death toll keeps piling up while officials issue warnings, suspend routes and place rescue workers on standby. The people who pay are the ones trapped in flooded buildings, stranded without power, or sent scrambling as the storm front moves in.