Typhoon-Hit Kansai Airport Terminal Reopens Partially

September 14, 2018

Izumisano, Osaka Pref.- Kansai International Airport reopened the southern area of Terminal 1 on Friday, 10 days after it was flooded due to a storm surge caused by a violent typhoon.

Kansai Airports, the operator of the airport in the Osaka Prefecture city of Izumisano, is expected to reopen Terminal 1 on a full scale on Sept. 21, including the northern area.

On Friday, nearly 200 domestic and international flights are scheduled to be hosted by the airport, including flight services at less-damaged Terminal 2, which partially resumed operations last week by using Runway B, one of the two runways at the airport.

Runway A was flooded to a depth of up to 50 centimeters due to Typhoon Jebi, which mainly hit western Japan on Sept. 4. The runway was restored on Thursday.

Some electrical equipment in the basement of Terminal 1 also suffered damage due to flooding.

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference on Friday that the numbers of domestic and international flights at Kansai airport are expected to return to around predisaster levels by the end of this month.

On criticism that adequate information was not provided to foreign tourists when the airport was shut down due to the typhoon, Suga expressed the government's intention to work on boosting information delivery in English, Chinese and Korean and increasing mobile phone battery chargers used in the event of natural disasters. Jiji Press