COLUMN: China Evacuates 130,000 as Two Typhoons Strike in a Single Week

Introduction: When the Sky Grants No Truce

A nation already on its knees facing a second storm

It took only a few days for China to tumble from one disaster straight into another. Just as authorities were still counting the dead and missing left behind by Typhoon Maysak, a second climate monster, super typhoon Bavi, was already closing in on the country's eastern coast. According to regional officials cited by Al Jazeera, at least 130,000 people were evacuated after flooding triggered by Maysak in the southern province of Guangxi alone, where at least six people died and eleven others remained missing. That number alone is staggering: one hundred thirty thousand lives uprooted in an emergency, homes abandoned within hours, families crammed into makeshift shelters.

The national toll from Maysak runs well beyond that single province. Tornadoes tore through Hubei province, killing at least eleven people according to state media relayed by Reuters, while a landslide in Gansu left sixteen people still unaccounted for. The combined tally from several news agencies put the death toll in southern China at at least 39 as of July 9. These are not abstract statistics. They are lives suspended between rising water and rescuers who sometimes arrive too late.

Bavi, the typhon that would not wait its turn

While the country was still tending its wounds, a second category-5 threat was already announcing itself. Super typhoon Bavi, with winds approaching 200 km/h according to the Straits Times, was set to slam into Fujian and Zhejiang provinces on the evening of July 11. AccuWeather experts called the storm the most destructive in years for the region, with a diameter comparable to France at its widest extent. Taiwan, meanwhile, braced for rainfall exceeding one meter in some mountainous areas, mobilizing nearly 29,000 troops to support relief operations.

The coincidence of two major tropical systems in such a short span illustrates a reality climate scientists have been repeating for years without always being heard: extreme events no longer arrive with recovery pauses in between. They stack up, they overlap, and they exhaust the response capacity of a state that otherwise has one of the most centralized crisis-management systems in the world.

What strikes me most about this sequence is not just the scale of the numbers. It's the speed at which a society is forced to get back on its feet from one disaster just to face the next, with no room to catch its breath. There is plenty to criticize in how China handles crises, but credit is due here for a logistical mobilization few countries could match at this scale.

Guangxi Under Water: The Anatomy of a Mass Evacuation

Dams cracking, villages swallowed whole

The heart of the disaster played out in the southern province of Guangxi, where torrential rain caused the Liulan and Yunbiao reservoir dams near the city of Hengzhou to fail, according to information relayed by IQAir from official Chinese bulletins. Rivers burst their banks, flooding entire neighborhoods within hours. Residents interviewed by the BBC described thousands of people stranded on rooftops, particularly in mountain villages that were hard for rescuers to reach.

Facing the emergency, authorities deployed considerable resources: according to the Associated Press, more than 5,700 boats and drones were mobilized to bring drinking water and other essential supplies to areas cut off from the outside world. In the city of Guigang, roughly 60 kilometers from Hengzhou, military rescue teams managed to evacuate more than 10,000 students and teachers trapped inside a school complex. That figure alone speaks to the scale of the effort needed to pull a captive population out of the floodwaters.

Xi Jinping orders total mobilization

President Xi Jinping personally instructed local authorities to "spare no effort" in rescue operations, according to the New York Times, stressing the treatment of the injured and the relocation of disaster victims. That kind of direct intervention from the top of the Chinese state usually signals just how seriously the central leadership itself perceives the situation — an implicit acknowledgment that events had outpaced what provincial-level authorities could handle alone.

On the ground, local authorities announced that power had been restored to more than 60,000 households and that road repairs were continuing, according to remarks reported by the Associated Press. But the floodwaters are receding slowly, and more rain was still expected in several disaster zones in the days that followed. Reconstruction will take weeks, if not months.

There is something deeply human in these images of rooftops turned into makeshift shelters. Amid the noise of major geopolitical tensions worldwide, we too often forget that natural disasters of this scale redefine, in a matter of hours, the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who asked for nothing more than the safety of their own homes.

Beijing Boards Up Ahead of Bavi's Arrival

The capital is not spared the warnings

Contrary to the common assumption that only coastal provinces are exposed, the capital city of Beijing itself had to activate emergency measures. According to Reuters, the city issued its highest-level rain alerts for six of its sixteen districts, with forecasts calling for 150 millimeters of rain in six hours in some areas. Nearly 100,000 people had already been evacuated in the capital ahead of the storm, a figure that shows just how far the moisture funneled by Bavi reaches beyond its direct impact zone.

The districts of Miyun and Fangshan, on Beijing's outskirts, closed in-person classes and suspended outdoor activities, asking residents to stay indoors starting Thursday afternoon. The precedent is not trivial: heavy rains last year already killed at least 60 people in northern China, including more than thirty residents of a single nursing home. That collective memory explains the nervousness of local authorities facing a new alert of this intensity.

An entire country mobilized, ports at a standstill

In Zhejiang province, maritime authorities suspended 98 passenger vessels across 52 ferry routes and evacuated more than 3,000 people from isolated islands, according to information relayed by Chinese state media. The provincial government activated a Level III emergency response as Bavi threatened to become the first typhoon of the year to make direct landfall in this strategic industrial and coastal region.

This sprawling mobilization — from closed ports in Zhejiang to shuttered schools on Beijing's outskirts, to thousands of active rescuers in Guangxi — paints the picture of a country forced to manage two climate fronts at once. More than 170,000 rescuers were placed on alert in Zhejiang province alone, a figure that gives a sense of the anticipation deployed against a weather phenomenon deemed exceptional.

One can, and should, question the opacity of official Chinese figures with appropriate rigor. But the scale of the logistical mobilization described here — suspended ferries, closed schools, tens of thousands of rescuers deployed — goes well beyond political theater. It is a response to a very real threat, measured in human lives.

Taiwan on High Alert Facing an Exceptional Typhoon

Devastating winds forecast before impact even arrives

In Taiwan, the population braced for what local authorities described as the most destructive storm in years. Taiwan's cabinet secretary-general, Xavier Chang, warned on social media that Bavi could dump more than one meter of rain on some parts of the island, a volume capable of triggering deadly landslides in mountainous regions. Nearly 29,000 troops were placed on standby to support relief operations, a deployment that reflects the anticipated severity of the event.

In the northeastern port of Suao, hundreds of fishing boats sought shelter in the harbor to escape the approaching storm, according to images relayed by the Straits Times. Japanese and Taiwanese airlines announced the cancellation of dozens of flights, affecting thousands of passengers, while maritime authorities suspended links to the most exposed outlying islands.

The lesson of a region that is used to this, but never resigned

This is not the first time Taiwan and coastal China have faced major typhoons. But AccuWeather expert Jason Nicholls warned that even if Bavi weakened as it neared land, it would remain "a dangerous storm" for the island and eastern China through July 13. That caution in technical language reflects a reality the evacuation statistics confirm: no amount of preparation fully eliminates human risk in the face of winds approaching 200 km/h.

The combination of two major tropical systems striking the same region within days raises a broader question, well documented by climate scientists: the intensification of extreme weather events in the western Pacific, a zone already regularly exposed to typhoons but where the frequency and power of these events appear to be growing year after year according to several independent scientific studies.

There is a quiet form of courage in the way Suao's fishermen bring their boats home, in the way Guangxi's families climb onto their roofs to wait for rescue. That courage never makes headlines the way diplomatic tensions do, and yet it is what saves the most lives, year after year, against the sky's fury.

The Human Toll: Deaths, the Missing, and a Reconstruction Still Far Off

Numbers that keep changing, pain that stays

As of this writing, the combined toll from the two tropical systems — Maysak already past, Bavi still imminent — stands at at least 39 dead according to aggregated counts from the Associated Press, with dozens still missing between Guangxi and Gansu. As is always the case in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, these figures are likely to change as rescue teams reach the most remote areas and debris is cleared.

Typhoon Bavi had already claimed victims before even reaching mainland China: according to data reported by Wikipedia and corroborated by several regional agencies, the storm triggered rains and landslides that killed 15 people and left six others missing in the Philippines during its earlier pass through the Pacific. That figure is a reminder that a typhoon's track leaves marks at every stage of its journey, long before the final landfall that grabs the headlines.

An economic bill that is shaping up to be steep

Beyond the human toll, physical damage keeps piling up: damaged roads, downed power grids, suspended port infrastructure. Zhejiang province had to freeze the activity of nearly a hundred passenger vessels, a direct economic cost on top of the inevitable agricultural losses in Guangxi's flooded zones. Historically, China's major typhoon seasons run into billions of dollars in damage, a figure local authorities will only confirm precisely once Bavi has passed and the final tally is complete.

What remains certain is that rebuilding Guangxi's disaster zones will take months, if not years, for some of the hardest-hit rural villages. The damaged hydraulic infrastructure — the Liulan and Yunbiao reservoirs chief among them — will need to be reinforced before the next rainy season, or risk a repeat of the same grim scenario.

We tend to measure a climate disaster by its immediate toll, then forget about it as soon as the cameras leave. But the real consequences play out in the months that follow: lost harvests, homes to rebuild, families forced to restart a life interrupted by a few hours of torrential rain.

A Crisis Response Under the World's Watch

China's centralization put to the test

Managing two major climate disasters at once is a significant test for the Chinese state apparatus, known for its ability to rapidly mobilize considerable human and material resources in emergencies. Xi Jinping's direct intervention, documented by several international agencies including the New York Times, reflects the central leadership's determination to project an image of control and responsiveness, at a moment when any perceived failure in disaster response can carry internal political consequences.

The deployment of drones, thousands of boats and tens of thousands of rescuers is not simply a humanitarian response: it is also a demonstration of logistical capacity aimed at a population that, in some rural regions, has voiced frustration over the initial slowness of relief efforts, according to accounts gathered by the BBC from Guangxi residents.

The contrast with Taiwan, a democracy under climate pressure

It is hard to ignore the contrast between the two political systems facing the same natural threat. In Taiwan, the mobilization of nearly 29,000 troops comes with transparent public communication, featuring regular updates from local authorities through official channels. That transparency, typical of a democratic society where the press operates without the same constraints as in mainland China, allows for closer tracking of the crisis by the public itself and by outside observers.

This difference in governance is not an incidental detail in the current geopolitical context: it is a reminder that resilience in the face of natural disasters is not just a matter of material resources, but also of governance and trust between citizens and their institutions — an issue that reaches well beyond meteorology alone.

I won't pretend to settle here a governance debate that goes well beyond two typhoons. But it is fair to note, with no leniency for either system, that how a society informs and protects its citizens in a crisis says a great deal about its real priorities, far beyond official rhetoric.

The Climate, an Adversary That Knows No Geopolitical Truce

An intensification documented for years

Climate scientists have long warned about the intensification of typhoons in the western Pacific, a phenomenon tied to warming ocean temperatures that feed the energy of these tropical systems. Bavi's jump from a simple tropical depression to a category-5 typhoon in barely 18 hours, according to Joint Typhoon Warning Center data compiled by Wikipedia, illustrates an explosive intensification that is becoming increasingly common according to several independent meteorological studies.

This climate reality knows no ideological border and owes allegiance to no geopolitical camp. Whether in Beijing, Taipei, Kyiv or Washington, storms wait for no diplomatic summit to end and negotiate no ceasefire. They remind us, with a brutality that diplomacy too often ignores, that some challenges demand international cooperation that transcends the rivalries of the moment.

A bill that keeps growing worldwide

The western Pacific is not an isolated case: comparable extreme climate events regularly hit other regions of the globe, from Atlantic hurricanes to European floods. This accumulation of extreme events raises, year after year, the question of global funding for climate adaptation — an issue on which the great powers, China and the West alike, remain too often divided by competing priorities rather than united by shared urgency.

Facing Bavi and Maysak, China is mobilizing considerable resources. But the real question that arises year after year is one of long-term prevention: more resilient construction, tighter management of hydraulic reservoirs, and above all greater transparency about the risks faced by the most vulnerable populations, often located in the least-protected rural areas.

There is a bitter irony in watching world powers compete on every conceivable geopolitical front while collectively failing to treat climate as the transnational threat it has truly become. Typhoons do not pick sides. We, on the other hand, still too often choose to ignore them until the next disaster.

What Recent Climate History Teaches About Resilience

Precedents that weigh on collective memory

China is no stranger to devastating typhoons. Extreme rains the previous year in the country's north already claimed at least 60 lives, including more than thirty residents of a single nursing home, a tragedy that still weighs on how authorities communicate today about flood risks. That memory partly explains the speed with which Beijing chose to preemptively evacuate nearly 100,000 residents rather than risk another tragic toll in zones already identified as vulnerable.

This preventive approach, though imperfect and sometimes criticized for its statistical opacity, contrasts with past episodes where late warnings cost lives. The strengthening of early-warning systems, combined with the mobilization of thousands of rescuers even before Bavi's arrival, reflects real institutional learning, even if it remains largely insufficient against the intensification of extreme climate events seen in recent years.

Regional solidarity called into service

Faced with the scale of the crisis, coordination between Chinese provinces and Taiwanese authorities, even though the latter operate under an entirely separate political framework, reveals an unavoidable truth: no government structure, regardless of its regime, can face weather events of this intensity alone. The sharing of meteorological information between regional agencies, including through international scientific channels like the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, remains essential to anticipating the path of systems as unpredictable as Bavi.

This minimal technical cooperation, which persists despite the constant political tensions between Beijing and Taipei, is a reminder that some challenges outweigh even the most entrenched rivalries. Meteorology, unlike diplomacy, recognizes no geopolitical red line — only wind tracks and atmospheric pressures that wait for no one's approval.

There is something almost redeeming in the fact that a storm forces, even briefly, two rival administrations to exchange data essential to the survival of their respective populations. If only that logic of minimal cooperation could extend to other issues far more vital to regional peace.

Conclusion: Two Typhoons, a Lesson in Collective Humility

What Maysak and Bavi reveal

One hundred thirty thousand people evacuated in Guangxi alone, nearly a hundred thousand more in Beijing, tens of thousands of troops mobilized in Taiwan: the Maysak-Bavi sequence will stand as a striking example of how two climate disasters can, within a matter of days, test a region's entire capacity to protect its population. A toll of at least 39 dead and dozens missing is a reminder that behind every evacuation statistic lie individual human stories, homes abandoned in a rush, lives upended in a matter of hours.

China's mobilization, despite the legitimate criticism that can be directed at the opacity of its political system, demonstrated real logistical capacity, measurable in boats deployed, households reconnected to the power grid, students pulled out of a flooded campus. That capacity, however, must never be used to minimize the suffering of those who lost everything, nor to obscure legitimate questions about longer-term prevention of hydraulic disasters in the country's most vulnerable areas.

A vigilance that must outlast typhoon season

As Bavi continues its path toward Fujian and Zhejiang, vigilance remains essential for millions of people along the Chinese and Taiwanese coasts. The coming days will show whether reinforced infrastructure, early evacuations and thousands of deployed rescuers will be enough to contain an already heavy human toll. What is certain is that the frequency of these exceptional events demands, well beyond China's borders, a global reckoning on climate adaptation that too many governments keep putting off until tomorrow.

I don't know whether the world will learn the right lessons from this Maysak-Bavi sequence once the waters recede and the cameras move on. But I know that one hundred thirty thousand people evacuated within hours deserve better than a quickly forgotten line between two dispatches about the day's international tensions.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Editorial positioning

This column takes a humanist view of a natural disaster that transcends the usual geopolitical divides. It does not seek to exploit human suffering, but to document with rigor the scale of a major climate event affecting both mainland China and Taiwan simultaneously. Observations on governance differences between the two political systems reflect comparative analysis, not a definitive moral judgment.

Methodology and sources

All facts, figures and quotes come from verified and dated sources: Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Straits Times, IQAir and Wikipedia (for Joint Typhoon Warning Center technical data). No fact has been invented or extrapolated. Evacuation and casualty figures are subject to change as the situation develops on the ground.

Nature of the analysis

This text is a column, not neutral field reporting. Maxime Marquette (MadMax) was not present at the events described; all factual information is drawn from publicly accessible journalistic and scientific sources that are cited. Editorial passages in italics are explicitly identified as personal opinions, distinct from the facts reported.

Sources

Primary sources

Flooding in southern China: at least 39 dead, 130,000 evacuated — Associated Press, July 9, 2026

Typhoons Maysak and Bavi: flooding in China and Taiwan — The Washington Post, July 9, 2026

Deadly storms in central China as Bavi looms offshore — Reuters, July 7, 2026

Typhoon triggers rare flooding and tornadoes in China — BBC, July 8, 2026

Secondary sources

Typhoon Bavi churns toward Taiwan as China braces for landfall — The Straits Times, July 9, 2026

Tornadoes kill 17 in central China as typhoon Bavi looms offshore — Al Jazeera, July 7, 2026

Typhoon Maysak brings heavy rains to China — The New York Times, July 7, 2026

Typhoon Bavi (2026) — Joint Typhoon Warning Center technical data, Wikipedia