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

> 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…

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Column
- Published: 2026-07-20
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/column-china-evacuates-130-000-as-two-typhoons-strike-in-a-single-week

## Key takeaways

- Typhoon Maysak's flooding in Guangxi led to at least 130,000 evacuations, with at least six dead and eleven missing there; the national southern China toll was at least 39 as of July 9.
- Super typhoon Bavi was set to hit Fujian and Zhejiang, with Zhejiang suspending 98 passenger vessels and Beijing evacuating nearly 100,000 people ahead of the storm.
- Taiwan prepared for more than one meter of rain and mobilized nearly 29,000 troops, while Xi Jinping ordered officials to "spare no effort" in rescue operations.
- The columnist praises China's logistical mobilization but questions the opacity of official figures and contrasts it with Taiwan's more transparent communication.
- The column argues climate change is intensifying western Pacific typhoons and calls for long-term prevention and international cooperation.

## 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 stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Flooding in southern China: at least 39 dead, 130,000 evacuated — Associated Press, July 9, 2026](https://apnews.com/article/typhoon-maysak-bavi-china-taiwan-flooding-e0d8291a25627d8b62595739b51a569e)

- [Typhoons Maysak and Bavi: flooding in China and Taiwan — The Washington Post, July 9, 2026](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/07/09/typhoon-maysak-bavi-china-taiwan-flooding/be60527c-7b53-11f1-b194-f872dd4ec5aa_story.html)

- [Deadly storms in central China as Bavi looms offshore — Reuters, July 7, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/storms-kill-least-eight-central-china-typhoon-bavi-looms-offshore-2026-07-07/)

- [Typhoon triggers rare flooding and tornadoes in China — BBC, July 8, 2026](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79ygnv9e93o)

### Secondary sources

- [Typhoon Bavi churns toward Taiwan as China braces for landfall — The Straits Times, July 9, 2026](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/typhoon-bavi-churns-towards-taiwan-as-china-braces-for-landfall)

- [Tornadoes kill 17 in central China as typhoon Bavi looms offshore — Al Jazeera, July 7, 2026](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/7/tornadoes-kill-17-in-central-china-as-typhoon-bavi-looms-offshore)

- [Typhoon Maysak brings heavy rains to China — The New York Times, July 7, 2026](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/world/asia/china-flooding-typhoon-maysak.html)

- [Typhoon Bavi (2026) — Joint Typhoon Warning Center technical data, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Bavi_(2026))

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/column-china-evacuates-130-000-as-two-typhoons-strike-in-a-single-week