Airman 1st Class Joseph Green, 21, left, from Springfield, Mass., and Staff Sgt Skyler Cunningham, 26, from Knoxville, Iowa, of the 18th Civil Engineering Squadron, Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan, discard branches at Kadena High School, Aug. 7, 2023. (Frank Andrews/Stars and Stripes)

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa – Tropical Storm Khanun rumbled toward Japan and South Korea on Monday after a second pass of Okinawa left roads there littered with debris and thousands still without power.

The storm wreaked havoc on Japan’s southern island chain for nearly five days, coming within 60 miles of Kadena Air Base on Wednesday morning before curving back and returning, weaker, to about 100 miles north-northwest of Kadena on Saturday afternoon.

Khanun was forecast to pass just west of Sasebo Naval Base on Kyushu, southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, overnight Wednesday into Thursday, and make landfall near Chinhae Naval Base in southeastern South Korea around midday Thursday, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center said Monday.

The storm was 375 miles south of Sasebo and 513 miles south-southeast of Pusan, South Korea, on Monday morning and tracking east-southeast at 5 mph, according to the warning center. Its winds at the center were sustained at 63 mph with 81-mph gusts.

Sasebo on Monday afternoon entered Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness 2, which means destructive winds of 57 mph or greater are anticipated within 24 hours, according to a post on the base Facebook page. People were advised to secure outdoor items.

Khanun, which means jackfruit in Thai, slammed into Okinawa on Tuesday night, the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane with wind gusts as high as 145 mph, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. At Naha, the capital of Okinawa, 26 inches of rain have fallen since Aug. 1, more than double the average August rainfall since 1991.

Lifeguards reassemble a lifeguard watch station at Araha Beach on Okinawa, Japan, on Aug. 7, 2023, after Typhoon Khanun passed near the island. (Frank Andrews/Stars and Stripes)

The storm injured 68 people, according to the prefecture’s Disaster Prevention and Crisis Management Division website. Two deaths are being investigated as possibly being typhoon-related, a division spokesman said by phone Monday.

Several Marines received minor injuries, Capt. Brett Dornhege-Lazaroff, spokesman for the III Marine Expeditionary Force, said by phone Monday. He said he had no further details.

“Readiness was not impacted by the storm,” Dornhege-Lazaroff said.

An Air Force weather radar in Uruma city was damaged by the storm, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK. The 18th Wing did not immediately respond to a request seeking further information Monday afternoon.

Khanun on its first pass knocked out power to over 200,000 homes across the Ryukyu Islands, Okinawa Electric Power Co. said on its website. During its second pass, over 33,000 homes went or remained dark. Just over 4,000 were still without power Monday afternoon, the utility said. Khanun was downgraded to a tropical storm on Friday.

NEXCO-West, which operates Okinawa’s expressway, on Monday reopened the stretch of highway between Naha and Ishikawa, a spokeswoman said by phone Monday. NEXCO-West requires spokespeople to speak on the condition of anonymity.

Flights at Naha Airport, grounded two days, resumed Monday, according to the airport’s Twitter account Sunday.

Kadena experienced some outages and flooding but no injuries, wing spokesman Lt. Col. Raymond Geoffroy said by email earlier Monday. Engineers are working to restore power to a few remaining facilities around the base and the wing is preparing to resume “normal flying operations.”

Stars and Stripes reporters Frank Andrews and Dave Ornauer contributed to this report.