An unexploded World War II-era American bomb buried at a Japanese airport exploded Wednesday, causing a large crater in a taxiway and the cancellation of more than 80 flights but no injuries, Japanese officials said.
Officials from the Ministry of Land and Transport said no planes were in the area when the bomb exploded at Miyazaki airport in southwestern Japan.
Officials said an investigation by the Self-Defense Forces and police confirmed that the explosion was caused by a 500-pound American bomb and that there was no further danger. They were determining what caused the sudden explosion.
Kyodo via AP Images
Video recorded by a nearby aviation school showed the blast spewing bits of asphalt into the air like a fountain. Videos broadcast on Japanese television showed a crater in the taxiway, reportedly about 7 meters in diameter and 90 cm deep.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said more than 80 flights have been canceled at the airport, which hopes to resume operations on Thursday morning.
“There is no threat of a second explosion and police and firefighters are currently investigating the accident scene,” Hayashi said.
A fire brigade “received a call from the airport at 7.59am that an incident involving smoke had occurred”, the spokesman told AFP.
Miyazaki Airport was built in 1943 as a former Imperial Japanese Navy flight training field from which some kamikaze pilots took off on suicide bombings.
A number of unexploded bombs dropped by the U.S. military during World War II have been unearthed in the area, Defense Department officials said.
Other unexploded ordnance dropped by the United States was reportedly found at a nearby construction site in 2009 and 2011.
Hundreds of tons of unexploded bombs from the war are still buried around Japan and sometimes dug up at construction sites.
A total of 2,348 bombs weighing 41 tons were removed in fiscal year 2023, Reuters news agency reported, citing the Self-Defense Force.
Last year, a World War II bomb was found in England exploded in what authorities are calling an “unplanned” explosion.
AFP contributed to this report.
