Flights at Sendai Airport resumed Wednesday morning after the Ground Self-Defense Force took steps to contain an unexploded bomb, believed to be a wartime dud, discovered at a construction site near the runways.
GSDF personnel piled sandbags around the bomb at around 6 a.m. Wednesday, erecting a 6-meter-high protective wall as a stop-gap measure to contain fragments if it explodes.
The first airplane, bound for Osaka, left Sendai Airport at around 7:40 a.m., almost on time, after all flights were canceled Tuesday due to the unexploded bomb, airport authorities said. However, one of the airport's two runways and part of a taxiway remain closed, so flights could be delayed Wednesday, they said.
The bomb, 110 cm long, 35 cm in diameter and weighing an estimated 250 kg, was found Monday night about 1.2 km west of the airport building. In the work expected to take several days, the GSDF plans to remove the bomb's fuse.
