Miyazaki International Airport in southern Japan has been closed due to a World War II bomb explosion, Japanese media reported.
Miyazaki Airport in southwestern Japan closed its runway on Wednesday after an unexploded ordnance exploded shortly before 8 a.m. (local time), creating a crater 23 feet wide and 3.2 feet deep in the middle of the taxiway.
No one was injured and no aircraft were in the vicinity at the time of the explosion, the Ministry of Land and Transport said. A bomb disposal team from the Ground Self-Defence Force determined that the explosion was caused by a US bomb that had been buried underground, probably during a military raid.
It was later revealed that a munition weighing about 277 kilograms, which was manufactured in the US, had exploded. Why it was not removed from the airport grounds is still unclear.
Japanese government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said the runway will reopen on Thursday morning after repairs are completed.
Flights to Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka were operating from the air harbour, according to Miyazaki Airport’s website.
Miyazaki Airport opened in 1943 as a base for the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was used to dispatch kamikaze planes. In 2009 and 2011, unexploded bombs were found near and on the territory of the aerodrome. According to the Japanese media, a total of 2,348 bombs weighing 37.5 tonnes were destroyed in 2023.
