Women take a selfie on the Bund promenade along the Huangpu River after Typhoon Bavi made landfall in Shanghai, July 12. AFP-Yonhap
WENZHOU, China — Typhoon Bavi, the most powerful storm to strike mainland China this year, brought heavy rainfall to the eastern coast on Sunday and lashed densely populated cities with violent winds, testing the country's ability to cope with extreme weather.
Bavi had weakened by Sunday morning to a tropical storm as it pushed inland, but forecasters warned that the France-sized storm system could unleash prolonged and widespread rainfall across eastern and northern China in the coming days.
Nearly 2 million people were evacuated ahead of Bavi's arrival, mostly in Zhejiang province, an economic and technological powerhouse in the world's second-largest economy.
Bavi struck Zhejiang's coastal city of Yuhuan at around 11:20 p.m. (1520 GMT) on Saturday before making a second landfall in Yueqing, part of the city of Wenzhou, at around midnight.
