Kansai International (KIX) flooded by typhoon.

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Wow, that's incredible...what a mess.
I flew into there maybe a dozen years ago and apparently my bags were not closed properly after being inspected in the US...there was a horrible downpour when we landed and everything in my suitcases got soaked through the open zippers. I had a few hours to get some sleep before morning meetings and spent all that time trying to get my suits halfway decent looking.
Didn't even notice the unusual location of the airport as it was dark and it was hard to see anything through the rain. The one thing that struck me as I waited for a bus to my hotel was that the entire crew for any given bus company would turn and bow in unison whenever one of their vehicles left. When I took a bus to Narita to go home, the driver wore white gloves and kept up a nonstop monologue during our drive even though nobody on the bus understood Japanese...
 
It's been close to a year now since we were there last. We flew out of Narita then. As you mentioned, everyone is polite, even security which is very much welcome compared to our TSA experiences.

The Japanese people cannot get a break. A 6.8 earthquake just hit near Sapporo. This just occurred about twenty minutes ago.
 
Double wow on the earthquake...I also had a whirlwind visit to Sapporo on my trip, headed up from Tokyo for a meeting and back the same day. Really beautiful area.
 
The wife and I want to visit Hokkaido sometime. Also the Osaka Kyoto region.

I'm seeing major damage in the cities. Major landslides in the rural areas have covered homes and farms. A large steel mill is on fire in one of the big cities.

The nuclear plant in the area shut down as it was supposed to. Power is out as is water and landline phone service.
 
Remembered this as the airport that was sinking; so far about 27 feet. At least the subsidence rate has slowed down to about three inches per year, according to Wiki. But, with an elevation of only 17 feet AMSL, the next typhoon in a few years does not have to push the same amount of storm surge to do as much damage as Jebi did this week.

Anybody with dredging experience out there that can explain what they could do here?
 
Looks like they are pushing to get limited domestic service back by this Friday. International will come later.

I haven't heard anything about the runways but the terminal lower areas were hit hard. Baggage systems are down there. Customs and immigration are down below too as I recall.

The closure will put extra demands on the Tokyo airports Haneda and Narita and maybe Centrair in Nagoya. So if you have a trip planned to Tokyo, expect some delays or other issues.
 
Kansai is a great airport. Flew there many times in the 747, back in the day.

A huge engineering marvel. The entire island was artificially created, built by piling up material in the bay. The terminal itself has hundreds of jacks underneath to account for the planned settling of the material over time.

At night, it looks just a bit like an aircraft carrier - a lone runway in the middle of dark water. Much longer of course.

And the crosswind there can be fierce. Wind rips across the water from Kobe, with nothing to stop it.

The downtown airport was both land-locked (buildings etc. crowd it and limit its length) and surrounded by terrain. Longer runways required for international flights could only be built outside the city. This was the solution and it's very cool.

The Hong Kong airport Chep Lap Kok (which replaced Kai Tek) was done after Kansai, and borrowed some of the reclamation idea. They dug out a mountainside for the material and built an artificial island next to that mountain. Same reason - longer/more runways needed and no room downtown.
 
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They have since added a second runway by building another island adjacent to the first.

As I recall, the main terminal building is one of the longest in the world if not the longest.
 
It is indeed. Despite all the stories of problems with the sinking island, the airport runs very well and better than most US airports in my opinion.

Tokyo's Haneda airport is also on a island. What is really fascinating is to look at a current map of Tokyo Bay. There has been a lot of reclamation ongoing over many years now. The amount of land built up in what was the bay is astounding. This includes port activities, residential, industrial and commercial. The 2020 Olympics will have a number of facilities on reclaimed land.
 
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