Osaka’s Kansai International Airport partially reopened Friday, three days after the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in 25 years created storm surges that almost completely flooded the island facility. The closure forced the cancellation of some 400 flights a day and left some 7,800 passengers stranded until emergency shuttle bus service resumed on September 5.
Authorities had to close the main bridge linking the airport with the mainland because a tanker ship collided with the structure, forcing the suspension of all ground transportation to the island. Although officials deemed the undamaged part of the bridge safe to cross and opened a lane of the road to bus traffic, rail service remains suspended while repair work continues.
Typhoon Jebi made landfall on Shikoku, Japan’s smallest main island, early on Tuesday afternoon, then battered the city of Kobe as it skirted the western part of the island of Honshu, before moving out over the Sea of Japan in the evening. The storm also forced the cancellation of some flights at Osaka’s Itami Airport and another island airport—Chubu Centrair International—22 miles south of Nagoya.
Opened in 1994, Kansai International serves as a hub for All Nippon Airways and its partner Nippon Cargo Airlines, Japan Airlines, FedEx, and low-fare carriers Jetstar Japan and Peach. The airport became the center of controversy even before its opening, when engineers determined that the man-made island on which it sat began to subside far faster than expected. Still sinking into the sea at what many experts consider an alarming rate, the island has now subsided 37 feet, forcing the airport to raise the sea walls meant to protect it from flooding.