More than 200 people were evacuated from their homes in a southern island prefecture of Okinawa and the Kyushu region's Kagoshima prefecture, local officials said.

Twelve people in Okinawa, south of Kyushu, had been injured by Monday as Songda swept over the area. In Okinawa, 102 people left their homes due to the powerful typhoon, a spokesman for the Okinawa prefecture police said.

Songda was the biggest typhoon to hit Okinawa "in several years," a weather official said.

As Songda headed toward Kyushu, nine people in Kagoshima prefecture were injured and 118 people abandoned their homes, a police spokesman in Kagoshima said.

At noon Monday, Songda was packing winds of up to 144 kilometres (90 miles) per hour and was expected to hit the main island of Kyushu early Tuesday, said the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Songda, named after a Vietnamese river, came as the meteorological agency warned that another typhoon, Sarika, was on course to approach Japan this week.

The latest typhoon is the fourth major tropical storm in Japan since late August. The previous three killed a total of 26 people in the country.

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