New Delhi, July 10 -- SHANGHAI - Hui Xinyi was still deciding which windows to tape shut when the meteorology bureau sent its third alert in as many hours. The English tutor, living in Hangzhou - roughly equidistant between Shanghai and the coastline where Super Typhoon Bavi is projected to arrive - did not know if the storm would hit her city directly or pass further north. "Whether it will actually make landfall here or just brush past is still up in the air," she said. "It's this uncertainty that makes people really panic."

That uncertainty stretched across hundreds of kilometres of eastern China on Thursday as Bavi, the ninth and most powerful typhoon of the 2026 season, closed in on the coast. Shanghai was shutting tourist attractio...