3 More Japan Airports to Undergo Dud Shell Checks

Tokyo, Oct. 4 (Jiji Press)--Japan's transport minister Tetsuo Saito said Friday he has instructed checks for unexploded shells at three domestic airports on top of Miyazaki Airport, where a World War II U.S. bomb exploded on Wednesday.

The three are Sendai Airport in the northeastern prefecture of Miyagi, Fukuoka Airport in the southwestern prefecture of Fukuoka and Naha Airport in the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa.

Besides the airport in Miyazaki Prefecture, southeast of Fukuoka, dud shells have already been found at the three airports. At Naha Airport, in particular, as many as eight such shells have been discovered so far this year, including one found just Thursday.

Planned magnetic surveys will focus on taxiway shoulders, after Wednesday's explosion took place on a taxiway shoulder and created an oval hole around 7 meters long, 4 meters wide and a meter deep. The accident paralyzed Miyazaki Airport for the whole day.

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[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]