TOKYO—According to Japanese officials, an unexexploded World War II American bomb that had been buried at an airport in Japan detonated on Wednesday, creating a sizable hole in a taxiway and forcing the cancellation of more than 80 flights.
When the device went off at Miyazaki Airport in southwest Japan, no one was injured and no aircraft was in the area, according to officials from the Land and Transport Ministry.
A 500-pound American bomb was the source of the explosion, according to an inquiry by the police and Self-Defense Forces, and there was no further threat. Authorities were investigating the reason for its unexpected explosion.
A neighboring aviation school captured footage of the explosion showing fragments of asphalt shooting upwards like a fountain. Videos that were shown on Japanese media purportedly showed a crater in the taxiway that was one meter (three feet) in depth and seven meters (yards) in circumference.
As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 80 aircraft have been canceled at the airport, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi.
According to the airport, flights resumed on Thursday morning after the damage to the taxiway was fixed over night.
When Miyazaki Airport was constructed in 1943, it served as a former aviation training facility for the Imperial Japanese Navy, from which some pilots launched suicide assault flights.
According to representatives of the Defense Ministry, some unexploded bombs dropped by the American forces during World War II have been found nearby.
Thousands of unexploded bombs from the war are still buried all throughout Japan, and occasionally they are unearthed from under building sites.
