Typhoon "Dante" (international codename Kujira) destroyed over 1 percent of projected Philippine second quarter rice output and another tropical storm predicted to hit land this week could do further damage, a senior agriculture official said on Wednesday.

The weather bureau said tropical storm Chan-Hom was estimated at 710 km (441 miles) off Mindoro province southwest of the main Philippine island of Luzon with maximum sustained winds of 110 kph near the centre and gusts of up to 140 kph.

The storm was moving slowly northeast and was expected to enter Philippine territory by Thursday morning.

Chan-Hom's projected path showed it could hit northern Isabela province, the country's second-biggest rice producer, where around 120,000 tons of paddy rice remain unharvested, Agriculture undersecretary Jesus Emmanuel Paras told Reuters.

"Our main worry is our rice in Isabela, but we don't expect the entire 120,000 tons to be wiped out by the storm," he said.

Isabela produces about 800,000 tons of unmilled rice every cropping season and has so far harvested 85 percent of the current dry crop, Paras said.

Typhoon Dante, which dumped rains causing landslides and flooding in six provinces in the Philippines' central Bicol region, wiped out nearly 40,000 tons of unmilled rice, or about 1.2 percent of the country's second-quarter production target of 3.22 million tons, latest government estimates showed.

The Philippines expected full-year 2009 rice output to rise 4.4 percent from last year's 16.82 million tons.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said earlier on Wednesday Philippine rice imports this year may reach 2 million tons, about 10 percent more than forecast.

An average of about 20 typhoons strike the Southeast Asian nation every year but officials have said that number may rise due to climate change.