Typhoon wreaks havoc on Japan airport

The typhoon that struck Japan on Tuesday has killed 11 people and left hundreds injured, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Wednesday.

The powerful Typhoon Jebi, the strongest to hit Japan in at least 25 years, has shut down Kansai International Airport in Kobe indefinitely.

Jebi caused high tides that flooded the airport's two runways and the ground floor of a terminal building. The airport, built on a man-made island in 1994, is a gateway for flights from overseas, especially China and other Asian countries.

A rescue operation was underway on Wednesday to extract around 5,000 people - including 3,000 passengers and 2,000 airport staff - who were stranded at the airport on Tuesday night. The bridge linking the airport to the city of Izumisano in Osaka was severely damaged, leaving the gateway an isolated island.

Japan is still assessing the extent of the damage caused by the typhoon.

The Transport Ministry said no Japanese airport has reported such large-scale flooding in recent years.

Concerns are mounting that if the Kansai airport's closure continues, it could have a significant economic impact.

The airport is a major hub for both travelers and cargo. It connects Japan with at least 80 cities worldwide, according to Japan's broadcaster NHK.

The airport said it handled a record 28 million passengers last year, a year-on-year increase by 12 percent. Three quarters of the passengers were from overseas. The Kansai region included the ancient capitals of Kyoto and Nara that attract a growing number of foreign tourists.

The airport is also a major logistics hub for shipping. Local customs officials say more than $50 billion worth of exports were flown out of the facility to the rest of the world last year.

That makes the airport Japan's second busiest air cargo hub after Narita airport near Tokyo. Seventy percent of the exports from the Kansai airport went to China and elsewhere in Asia.

Businesses are grappling with Jebi's devastating aftermath.

Kansai airport remained closed and more than 200 flights were canceled on Wednesday, affecting over 30,000 people, the Kyodo News said.

Japan's JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corp shut at least one of the refining units at its 135,000 barrels-per-day Sakai refinery in Osaka in western Japan due to damage to part of the cooling tower, the trade ministry said.

Many chip plants operate in the Kansai region. Toshiba Memory, the world's second-largest maker of flash memory chips, was monitoring developments closely and may need to ship products from other airports if Kansai remains closed, a spokeswoman said.

Typhoon Jebi also caused blackouts and shuttered shops, factories and amusement parks. More than 2 million people were told to evacuate on Tuesday. Hundreds of thousands of households are still without power in the Kansai region. In Osaka, some 2,000 traffic lights are not working.

Although Jebi disrupted transportation, many shinkansen bullet train services are now back to regular schedules. But some local trains are still experiencing delays.

Still, the typhoon ravaged some cultural assets such as ancient temples in Kyoto, Nara and Shiga.

Jebi triggered a historic storm surge of 3.29 meters in Osaka prefecture on Tuesday, surpassing the previous high of 2.93 meters recorded in 1961 due to Typhoon Nancy, which killed 194 people.

Japan has been hit by a series of typhoons recently, with western parts of the country devastated by massive flooding and landslides that left more than 220 people dead in July.

caihong@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/06/2018 page12)