New Delhi, July 12 -- BEIJING - Eighteen people were dead in the Philippines and 1.72 million had been relocated across eastern China when Typhoon Bavi came ashore on the Zhejiang coast Saturday night, the ninth tropical storm of the year to cut through the western Pacific and the third this season to reach Category 5 intensity at its peak.

20 p.m. local time before striking a second time at Yueqing City in Wenzhou around midnight. Maximum sustained winds at landfall reached 40 meters per second, equivalent to 144 kilometres per hour, as provincial authorities elevated Zhejiang's typhoon emergency response to its highest tier. The storm continued northwest after the second landfall, gradually weakening as it pushed inland.

Deaths in the...