Typhoon Bavi batters eastern China, threatens days of heavy rain

Typhoon Bavi, the most powerful storm to strike mainland China this year, brought heavy rain 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 rain across eastern and northern China in the coming days.



Over 2.8 million people have been evacuated, according to a Reuters tally of figures reported by state media.

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f those, more than 2.2 million were in Zhejiang, an economic and technological powerhouse in the world's second-largest economy. There have been no official reports of deaths or injuries.