'Pour' 20 billion USD into the sea, Japan surprises the world with seemingly impossible project

With an investment of up to 20 billion USD, Kansai International Airport is located in the middle of Osaka Bay off the coast of Honshu, Osaka, Japan, making many tourists surprised.

Kansai International Airport serves both domestic and international flights. Along with a host of high-end stores – such as Chanel, Hermes and Cartier – and great restaurants, the airport's exterior is what has social media users 'holding their breath' because of its uniqueness.

Kansai International Airport serves both domestic and international flights. (Illustration photo).

Problems with the airport in Osaka

Back in the late 1960s, Japan's Kansai region found itself losing its commercial, development, and business edge to the Tokyo area. To make Osaka and Kobe more attractive, the local government proposed building a new international airport to compete with the second airport under development in Tokyo at the time – the facility that would later become Narita International Airport (NRT).

Osaka's original Itami Airport is also facing overcrowding as commercial air travel becomes more popular. With the development of larger aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and the introduction of short-haul Boeing 737s rapidly increasing frequencies, the city needs to consider expanding Itami Airport. If this is not possible, a new airport may be the only solution to accommodate the increased capacity.

The problem with the first idea was that Itami Airport was located in the densely populated Itami and Toyonaka areas. This meant that the airport was surrounded by buildings and therefore could not be expanded. So the planners needed a new facility elsewhere in the area.

While the city suffered significant damage, the airport survived unscathed. (Illustration photo).

New airport planning

Initially, developers and government officials wanted to build a new airport near Kobe, which could serve both cities easily since Kobe did not have its own airport. However, the city of Kobe rejected these plans, and airport planners looked to the bay in the south of Osaka Prefecture instead. The advantage of this plan was that the airport would be far from all suburban and inland residential areas and could therefore operate 24 hours a day. It would also avoid the risk of public opposition (a problem that has occurred in Tokyo).

With this option, experts have planned to build an artificial island 4 km long and 2.5 km wide for the new airport. It requires complex engineering to have a solid foundation for the runway and buildings as well as withstand risks from natural phenomena such as storms, tsunamis and earthquakes.

These special design features really paid off in the earthquake years later. While the city suffered significant damage, the airport survived unscathed (although the facility was flooded by the storm).

Airport construction

The final infrastructure was broken in 1987, 20 years after the project began. It took more than three years to build the island. To connect the island to the mainland, the team built a three-kilometer-long bridge.

The island is divided into two areas for each airport building - Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. (Illustration photo).

Terminal 1 - designed by Renzo Piano - handles international and domestic flights to and from major airlines and is a whopping 1.7km long, making it the longest airport terminal in the world today.

Terminal 2 handles more local flights. At its peak in 2019, the airport handled 29.4 million passengers, making it the third busiest airport in Japan. It has also become an international hub for ANA and Japan Airlines. It also handles one million tons of cargo.

The airport initially cost $14 billion to build. By 2008, the cost had risen to $20 billion. That included land reclamation, two runways – a second 4,000m runway was added in 2007 – and terminals, according to the Institution of Civil Engineers ( ICE).

However, in 2018, since its inauguration in 1994, the airport has sunk at an alarming rate. Another $150 million has been poured into raising seawalls to protect the terminals, but the island is expected to sink another 4 meters by 2056. This will be a major problem for engineers and experts to deal with to keep the island and the airport functioning properly.