Packing winds up to 144 kilometers (90 miles) per hour, Typhoon Khanun, which means jackfruit in Thai, was churning south of Okinawa, some 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) south of Tokyo, the meteorological agency said.

The agency said Khanun was less powerful than Typhoon Nabi, which lashed much of Japan in the past week with heavy rain and strong winds.

Moving northwest at 25 kilometers (15 miles) per hour, Khanun is expected to be near Okinawa's Miyako island, some 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of the subtropical island, on Saturday.

By Sunday, the typhoon is likely to be near Taiwan, which is just 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Miyako island, the agency said.

Okinawa is regularly hit by powerful typhoons. But Nabi this week made a powerful hit on the mainland's southern island of Kyushu and crossed to the northern island of Hokkaido, which is rarely hit by typhoons.

Typhoon Nabi left 21 people dead and six missing as it criss-crossed Japan this week. It injured 140 people and flooded nearly 10,000 homes.

The typhoon also left at least five people missing in South Korea.

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