Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from parts of eastern China as Typhoon Bavi approaches the coast, the country's second major storm in a week. The typhoon, which spans up to 1,000km (620 miles) at its widest point — roughly the width of France — is expected to make landfall near the major city of Wenzhou on Sunday morning, and though now weakened to Category 1 it still poses a serious risk owing to the huge volume of moisture in its rain bands. The scale of the evacuations and the storm's arrival so soon after another deadly typhoon underline the growing pressure on the region.

Bavi began as a super typhoon, battering Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands with winds of 290km/h (180mph) before weakening as it crossed the Pacific, striking Japan's Sakishima islands (injuring at least five people) and brushing past northern Taiwan with heavy rain. Landslides linked to the storm earlier killed 17 people in the Philippines, while authorities forecast "exceptionally heavy rains" for Zhejiang and Fujian provinces; Wenzhou is home to around 10 million people. Dozens of flights have been cancelled and schools suspended, and parts of southern China are still recovering from Typhoon Maysak earlier in the week, which killed at least 39 people, caused major agricultural losses and spurred two rare tornadoes in Hubei province.