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Change Your Life! |
Japanese airport sinking on schedule, let it |
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August 9, 2000
TOKYO (AP) - Japan's second-largest airport is sinking, but there's no cause for alarm, its operator says. When Kansai International Airport opened six years ago on an artificial island off the city of Osaka, planners expected the reclaimed land to settle - by a maximum of 11.5 meters (37.95 feet) over 50 years. Now, amid mounting media speculation that it badly underestimated how much the 505-hectare (1,263-acre) island would sink, the airport's operator is planning to spend 27 billion yen (dlrs 248.6 million) to protect the terminal buildings and refueling tanks from underground flooding. But the Kansai International Airport Co. insists that the measures are purely precautionary - and denies media claims that planners engaged in wishful thinking in order to keep the 1.82 trillion yen (dlrs 16.8 billion) airport project within budgetary constraints. "It's true that some parts of the island have sunk more than we projected," spokesman Tomomitsu Matsumoto said Tuesday. "But on average the amount of consolidation is still within our forecast." The government-backed operator announced late last month plans to reinforce the airport's foundation in two places with underground walls designed to prevent water from seeping in. It says that could happen only during an exceptionally high tide - as exceptional as once every 50 years. Pumps will also be installed in case flooding does occur. That possibility isn't the only reason that some people in Japan have gotten a sinking feeling about Kansai International Airport. Another concern is that the artificial island is settling unevenly, which threatens to buckle the airport's foundation. To keep the terminal buildings level, designers equipped the supporting columns with hydraulic jacks that can raise and lower them. According to recent media reports, however, the terminal's wings have sagged so much that the jacks are barely able to correct the tilt. Airport spokesman Matsumoto confirmed that the jacks had been raised "regularly" but denied that there was any danger. Italian architect Renzo Piano, who designed the airport building, agreed with that assessment in a newspaper interview this week. He told Rome's La Repubblica that the island, which was filled in starting in 1987, had settled 10 meters (33 feet) by the time work on the terminal began in 1990 - but had only slipped about 20 centimeters (8 inches) more by the time the airport opened in 1994. "There's no reason for worry," he was quoted as saying. "It hasn't suddenly started sinking." |