Typhoon moves towards Japan, may brush Tokyo

TOKYO, Sep 22: A powerful typhoon packing winds of up to 198 km (124 miles) per hour was moving slowly towards Japan today and forecasters said it could brush past Tokyo over the weekend before veering back into the Pacific.

Typhoon Yagi, whose name means ''goat'' in Japanese, is a Category 4 storm, just a notch below a Category 5 super typhoon.

At 03:00 am today, the storm was about 550 km southwest of the remote island of Chichijima, about 1,000 km south of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

About 2,000 people live on the subtropical resort island.

Yagi was moving northwest at 30 kph and was forecast to weaken before coming within several hundred kilometres of the densely populated Tokyo region over the weekend.

The storm follows Typhoon Shanshan, whose heavy rains and high winds killed nine people and injured hundreds in southwestern Japan last weekend.

Reuters