An airport in southwestern Japan has resumed near-normal operations, one day after a blast left a hole in a taxiway.
An unexploded wartime bomb went off suddenly under a taxiway at Miyazaki Airport on Wednesday morning. The blast created a hole about one meter deep. Pieces of pavement and other debris flew about 200 meters away.
Four planes reportedly used the taxiway earlier in the day before the explosion occurred. One of them, a Japan Airlines flight with 93 people on board, had passed the site just a few minutes earlier.
Miyazaki Airport was an Imperial Japanese Navy air base during World War Two.
It is believed that the bomb weighed about 250 kilograms. That type of bomb was reportedly dropped by US forces during the war.
The airport’s runway was closed after the blast.
A specialized Japan Self-Defense Force unit removed the debris, confirmed that the area was safe and then refilled the hole.
The runway was reopened at 7:30 p.m., but more than 80 flights had been canceled. Schedule changes had to be made on Thursday because of the canceled flights.