Japan evacuates airport after typhoon wreaks havoc

Tokyo: Japan scrambled Wednesday to evacuate passengers trapped at a major airport when a tanker slammed into its only access bridge during the most powerful typhoon to hit the country for 25 years.
Typhoon Jebi left a trail of destruction across the country, killing 11 people and injuring hundreds more as it battered western Japan with ferocious winds and lashing rain.
Winds up to 216 kilometres per hour ripped off roofs, overturned trucks and swept a 2,500-ton tanker into a bridge leading to Kansai International Airport, the region’s main international gateway and a national transport hub.
The damage to the bridge left the artificial island housing the airport temporarily cut off, stranding 3,000 travellers and staff overnight as high waves flooded the runways and some buildings, knocking out the power.
On Wednesday boats began ferrying people out of the airport, and buses began to run on one side of the damaged bridge after safety inspections.
There was no indication when the airport, which operates over 400 flights a day, might reopen but local agency Kyodo News said it could take up to a week.
Typhoon Jebi made landfall at midday on Tuesday and moved quickly over the mainland, smashing through the major manufacturing area around Osaka – Japan’s second city – wrecking infrastructure and destroying homes.
Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said 11 people had been killed and 470 injured. According to Kansai Electric, more than 400,000 households were still without power.
In 2011 Typhoon Talas killed 82 people in the area, while in 2013 a storm that struck south of Tokyo left 40 people dead. Earlier this year, torrential rains lashed the west of the country, sparking flooding that killed more than 200 people as it laid waste to villages and caused hillsides to collapse. (AFP)