Japan braces as tropical storm heads north

TOKYO - A powerful tropical storm is moving slowly north toward Japan, threatening to make landfall by the end of the week along a coast that was hit by a record number of deadly typhoons last year.

Tropical storm Banyan, named after a tree common in tropical regions, was about 550 km west northwest of Chichijima, an island about 1000 km south of Tokyo late today.

The storm, with winds of up to 108 km/h, was heading north at 30km/h and was likely to make landfall on Tuesday evening, an official at Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

It was still too early to pinpoint exactly where the storm might come ashore, but there was a possibility that it could brush close to Tokyo, he said.

Japan's main islands were hit by a record 10 typhoons in 2004 compared with three in a normal season.

About 170 people were killed or left missing by the storms, which caused billions of dollars worth of damage.

Experts blamed the unusual number of typhoons hitting land on warmer-than-normal sea water and weaker-than-normal Pacific high pressure areas, which some people blame on global warming.

The Meteorological Agency official said conditions this year were similar in some ways.

"The sea water temperatures are high this year, but the Pacific high pressure areas are not quite as weak. So it's still impossible to predict what kind of typhoon season we're likely to see this year," he said.

- REUTERS