The very strong typhoon was located 200 kilometers (125 miles) south-southwest of Naha in Okinawa prefecture on Tuesday afternoon, bringing heavy rain and strong gusts to the region, the Meteorological Agency said.

Tokage, which means lizard in Japanese, was packing wind speeds of 144 kilometers (90 miles) per hour and moving north-northeast at a speed of 15 kilometers (nine miles) per hour.

According to the agency's computer simulation, it is expected to move northeast through the Japanese archipelago on Wednesday and Thursday, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and high waves.

The nine previous typhoons that have hit the country this year caused a total of 102 deaths and left 13 missing. A 10th typhoon would be a record.

Typhoon Ma-on, the most powerful typhoon to hit eastern Japan in a decade, slammed into the Tokyo metropolitan area on October 9, killing six people and paralyzing the capital's transport systems.

Just a week before Ma-on, Typhoon Meari wreaked havoc in the Japanese islands, killing 22 and injuring 89 in floods, landslides and other accidents.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.