Tokage is on course to become a record 10th typhoon to land on the main Japanese islands this year. It was expected to make landfall late Wednesday on the Pacific side, the Meteorological Agency said.

A 65-year-old farmer was swept away by a flooding river while he was inspecting a rice field in Miyazaki prefecture, 850 kilometers (530 miles) southwest of Tokyo, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

In Chiba prefecture, just east of Tokyo, two construction workers who were building up an embankment along a coastline were pulled into the Pacific by high waves, a Chiba government official said.

Strong winds caused slight injuries to at least seven people on the main Okinawan island, with another person injured in Saga Prefecture in the Kyushu region in southern Japan, according to police.

Authorities have issued evacuation warnings to 8,292 people who live mainly along the Pacific coast. By Wednesday morning, 3,141 people voluntarily left for temporary shelters, the disaster agency said.

A 9,900-ton cargo ship was grounded on an island off the coast of Ehime prefecture in southwestern Japan, but all 12 crew members were unharmed, a local police spokesman said.

"The vessel is still intact, not leaking oil," he added.

Packing wind speeds of 144 kilometers (90 miles) per hour, Tokage would be the biggest typhoon to land in Japan since 1991, when the agency began classifying typhoons by the size of their strong-wind zones, it said.

The radius of Tokage's strong-wind zone -- the area in which the average wind speed is in excess of 54 kilometers per hour -- measured some 750 kilometers, the agency said.

At 9:00 am (0000 GMT) Wednesday, Tokage -- which means lizard in Japanese -- was in the Pacific some 70 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of the southern Kyushu, one of four main Japanese islands, and moving northeast at 45 kilometers per hour.

According to a computer simulation by the agency, Tokage was expected to move northeast through the Japanese archipelago on Wednesday and Thursday, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and high waves.

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