Why Japan's most celebrated airport is slowly sinking into the sea

Japan's Kansai International Airport (KIX), celebrated for its architecture, efficiency and precision baggage handling, is now fighting a far less glamorous battle—against nature itself. Built on a sprawling man-made island in Osaka Bay, the engineering marvel is slowly but steadily sinking into the clay bed it stands on, raising urgent questions about its long-term future and the viability of such ambitious offshore infrastructure.
Inaugurated in 1994, KIX was once touted as a triumph of Japanese engineering. It was envisioned as a solution to congestion at Osaka's older airport and has since become a bustling international hub, linking over 30 million passengers to 91 cities across 25 countries. But three decades later, gravity and geology are proving to be formidable foes.
The airport's original island has sunk 12.5 feet since opening. The second island, added during expansion, has fared worse, descending a staggering 57 feet since landfill work began. Last year alone, 21 cm of subsidence was recorded at 54 points on this newer island, South China Morning Post reported.
The operator, Kansai Airports, insists that a degree of settlement was always expected and that recent measurements show the rate of sinking is slowing.
'It is sinking by less than 10cm (4 inches) a year now, but that is slowing and manageable,' said Hiroo Ichikawa, professor emeritus of urban planning and policy at Meiji University, SCMP reported.
He acknowledged that while some missteps were made—like building critical infrastructure underground, which proved disastrous during a typhoon—engineers are now better prepared.
The vulnerability of the site was dramatically exposed in 2018 when Typhoon Jebi, the strongest storm to hit Japan in 25 years, forced the complete shutdown of KIX. A storm surge swamped the airport, cutting power, flooding the basement-level disaster response centre and electric substation, and leaving 5,000 people stranded without power for over 24 hours.
The project, constructed atop 20 metres of soft alluvial clay, was always a gamble. Despite using 2.2 million vertical pipe drains and massive landfill (including 200 million cubic metres of debris and 48,000 tetrapods) to stabilise the ground, the clay has compressed more than predicted. Over $150 million has since been spent raising sea walls around the islands to counter the threat of encroaching water.
But not all experts are raising the alarm. Ichikawa called the project a 'valuable learning experience' and said similar airports, like Chubu Centrair near Nagoya, have benefited from the lessons learned at KIX. Opened in 2005 and smaller in scale, Centrair has experienced significantly less subsidence and was named the world's best regional airport for the 11th consecutive year in 2025 by Skytrax.
'The effect of sinking was taken into consideration in the design,' Ichikawa noted, SCMP reported. 'Engineers are constantly monitoring conditions at KIX and are working to limit the subsidence, but nothing is impossible and it really is just a question of cost.'

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Mint

2 hours ago

• Mint

Hemamalini Maiya of MTR Restaurants sees herself as a custodian of stories

You can't imagine it ever being quiet or empty, but on a weekday afternoon, the 100-year-old MTR Restaurant near Bengaluru's Lalbagh is especially loud and lively. Outside the steps leading into the restaurant, an ecosystem of small businesses has sprung up over the years—flower sellers, newspaper vendors, a fruit seller or two—all targeting customers streaming in for their evening vada and coffee. 'They are part of the MTR family," says Hemamalini Maiya, 52, managing partner, MTR Restaurants, as she leads me inside. I have been to MTR before, of course—you can't call yourself a Bengalurean unless you have stepped in here, bleary eyed after a morning walk in Lalbagh or exhausted from an appointment at the nearby Regional Passport Office, and wolfed down some tiffin with filter coffee so strong you can wrestle it—but this time, Maiya leads me to parts unseen. We walk through the small ground floor rooms, all filled with patrons, past a section of the kitchen where huge vats of sambar are boiling away, up a narrow flight of stairs and on to the first floor, where Maiya leads me through a warren of small rooms, all being put to full use during the rush hour, to her office. 'You would never have been able to find it on your own," says Maiya, laughing, as she places an order for khara bhath (aka upma) and coffee for us. One of Maiya's earliest memories is of walking down to the restaurant with her siblings after catching a movie at the nearby Urvashi Theatre, sitting in one of these small, semi-secret rooms behind the kitchen, and having her favourite rava idli. 'When I eat rava idli even today, I go back in time. It was my favourite dish, followed by 'Fruit Mixture'," she recalls, referring to an MTR innovation—fruit salad topped with almond milk-flavoured ice cream and toppings like paan-flavoured jelly, pomegranate and grapes. Stories about Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR), the iconic Bengaluru-based restaurant chain, are the stuff of legend; intricately woven with the history of the city and—in an almost Forrest Gump way—the world. Maiya is the third-generation custodian of the company, along with siblings Vikram and Arvind, founded by her great uncle Parampalli Yagnanarayana Maiya and his brothers in the year 1924, when they migrated to Bengaluru from coastal Karnataka to fill a growing need for clean, home-like food in the city. There's the one about how MTR invented the rava idli—it was during World War II, when there was a shortage of rice because of the Japanese invasion of Burma (now Myanmar), and Yagnanarayana Maiya, one of the founders, asked the kitchen staff to try making idlis with semolina instead, mixing it with curd and baking soda for faster fermentation. It became a hit, and eventually made its way to the menus of Udupi cafes and restaurants around the world, of which you could say MTR is the OG. Then there's the Chandrahara, a flaky, layered pastry fried in ghee, that was inspired by Yagnanarayana's travels in Europe. 'My grand-uncle travelled to London and Paris in 1951, and he went around looking at restaurants, absorbing a lot of their processes, their food. He was really taken with French pastry-making techniques and decided to try out a sweetmeat inspired by that… he called it 'French Sweet'," recalls Maiya. 'Sadly, it didn't take off. Yagnappa, as he was fondly called by everyone, was disappointed. Then he had a brainwave. There was a hit Kannada film in theatres called Chandrahara, and he decided to name the sweet after that. Overnight, it was a hit," says Maiya. Most south Indian eateries stick to a limited, tried and tested menu: there are a variety of idlis and dosas, a bunch of upmas, like khara bhath and the slightly fancier vermicelli upma (shavige bhath), pongal, crispy vadas and a halwa for dessert. The ones that do lunch and dinner—and not just 'tiffin"—offer a standard thali. While MTR does all this and more, the legacy of the company has been built on innovation, be it the unusual desserts on its menu or creating packaged, ready-to-eat foods, which was the speciality of MTR Foods, a subsidiary of the company created in 1975 during the Emergency, when state control over restaurants made the business less profitable. Managed by a different part of the Maiya family, MTR Foods eventually broke away to become an independent business entity and was sold to the Orkla Group, a Norwegian business conglomerate, in 2007. Yet, even today, people confuse the two, says Maiya. 'It is part of our complicated legacy. Recently, when there were rumours that Orkla was selling MTR Foods to an Indian FMCG company, media reports carried photos of MTR restaurants," she says, wryly. 'Actually, what bothers me more is when our old-timers, people who have been coming to the restaurant twice a day every day for 40 years, walk up to me and say 'amma, why are you selling the business?' I realise that this place is like a second home to them, and they don't want any changes." Maiya started managing the business in her late 20s after studying engineering at the BMS College of Engineering in Bengaluru. She was planning to go abroad for a masters' degree when life took an unexpected turn. Her father, Harishchandra, who was in charge, was not well, and her brother, who was supposed to take charge of MTR, changed his mind almost overnight about stepping into the role. 'He got cold feet—you could say literally, because our father's shoes were too big to fill. So dad told me 'hey do the best you can' and I stepped in, just like that. There was no planning, no preparation—I just walked into MTR, and that's how my journey began," recalls Maiya. Today, all three of her siblings are involved in the business in various capacities, though she has been calling the shots for over 25 years—a tough act for a woman in a heavily male-dominated industry where most employees, from line cooks to the servers, are men. 'Initially, I think, people were too bemused to react. They thought this was a temporary situation and I'd get married and go away. I earned their trust day by day," says Maiya, who is single. Maiya has added many landmarks to the business. It was a single, stand-alone restaurant when she joined the company, which she helped expand to 17 locations, most in Karnataka and several outside India, in cities like Singapore, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and London. Most of the new restaurants are called MTR 1924 and feature modern interiors and posher seating, though the menus remain largely the same. In the immediate future, the brand has plans to expand internationally and is looking at the US, Australia and a few locations in South-East Asia. Work on expanding to at least two international locations this year is going on behind the scenes, Maiya says. When asked why they are not looking to expand within India, she says a bit evasively: 'The logistics of it are we don't want to franchise. We want to run the restaurants ourselves and we are stretched as it is. Abroad, having a huge Indian diaspora helps." Along with expansions, another decision that reaped benefits for the restaurant was joining food delivery platforms early in their trajectory—in a meeting for this column with a Swiggy co-founder, he had mentioned that MTR joining the platform as it was expanding was a big morale boost for the then-fledgling startup. Maiya says it was a conscious decision to move with the times—back then, most traditional eateries serving south Indian food were reluctant to join the delivery game. 'So, we were not convinced initially, especially because we didn't want the hassle in the main restaurant, which is already very busy. But then we realised that delivery was going to be a big factor in sales, so we said we won't touch the main restaurant but we will partner through the other branches," says Maiya. 'And I am glad we did because delivery has changed the game. We see that on the business side also. There is a good percentage (of revenue) that delivery brings in. I think it's to do with how the world has evolved. There's more ordering in, and for youngsters especially, going to a restaurant is a special occasion. For functional meals, they would rather order in," she adds, providing a sharp insight into the way different generations approach eating out—for the core, older generation of patrons at MTR, it is the sense of community that brings them in, while for younger folks, eating out is worth it only if you can talk about it on Instagram. She did stick to her guns about not going the multi-cuisine way, even when a lot of older eateries were doing so, introducing Indo-Chinese and north-Indian dishes into their menus. 'It's easy to succumb to that because the margins are higher. I mean, a bowl of north Indian curry—probably the cost price would be less than making a dosa," she says. 'You make the same base curry and add different things to it—sure, I can see the economics of it. But that would dilute our brand. No, we would never do that," she says firmly. A couple of months ago, Maiya and her siblings decided to look back at MTR's journey in a more meaningful way, even as they are in the process of figuring out the company's succession while being very clear that it will stay with the family. 'As we were nearing the 100-year mark, I realised how much we were losing along the way… how many stories were untold as employees, customers, well-wishers passed away," says Maiya. To commemorate the anniversary, she commissioned a coffee-table book called The MTR Story: A Labour of Love. Written by Pratima Chabbi, a former restaurant industry executive turned writer, the book is based on interviews with the Maiya family, restaurant staff, vendors, patrons and even those employed in the informal economy that thrives outside the restaurant. 'I feel like my job is to hold on to this story, you know, but also take it forward. That's always on my mind," says Maiya.

Time of India

14 hours ago

• Time of India

New Baba Vanga July 5 Disaster Prediction: Here's what may happen on this day

A prediction made years ago by Japanese manga artist Ryo Tatsuki , who is also dubbed as New Baba Vanga, is now affecting travel and tourism across Japan and nearby regions. Many people have responded to her prediction with caution, resulting in fewer bookings and airline cancellations. New Baba Vanga Warning Ryo Tatsuki shared a warning in her 1999 manga The Future I Saw. The manga predicted a major disaster in Japan on July 5. Tatsuki had earlier predicted the Covid-19 pandemic, among other global events. Her work states that a seabed crack between Japan and the Philippines will cause waves larger than those in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Impact Tatsuki's prediction has led to widespread concern, particularly in Hong Kong. Bloomberg Intelligence reported an 83 percent drop in flight bookings from Hong Kong to Japan between late June and early July. Hong Kong Airlines suspended flights to cities like Kumamoto and Kagoshima for July and August. Cancellations are also affecting regional airlines, especially those using Boeing aircraft. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like War Thunder - Register now for free and play against over 75 Million real Players War Thunder Play Now Undo Also Read: Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Rivals Event: How to earn rewards? See start date, time, rewards and when is next scheduled event Spring Bookings Also Fell A Hong Kong travel agency said April and May holiday bookings dropped by 50 percent compared to the previous year. Cherry blossom season and Easter holidays usually see strong demand. Greater Bay Airlines found the decline unusual. Their Japan office expected 80 percent seat occupancy but only reached 40 percent. Live Events Japanese Officials Urge Calm Japanese officials are trying to reassure the public. Miyagi Governor Yoshihiro Murai asked people not to panic. He noted that citizens are not leaving the country. He encouraged tourists to continue visiting Japan. Also Read: Netflix July 2025 Removals: Here's complete list of movies and shows Track Record of Predictions Ryo Tatsuki has made past predictions that later came true. These include the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, the deaths of Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury, and the Covid-19 outbreak. She also warns of a more dangerous virus strain in 2030. FAQs Why are people cancelling flights to Japan? Many are reacting to a prediction of a natural disaster on July 5, shared in a 1999 manga, which has caused fear and led to lower bookings. Has the Japanese government issued a warning? No official warnings have been issued. Officials are asking people to stay calm and ignore the prediction.

News18

16 hours ago

• News18

Indian Tourists Dance At Thailand Safari Park, Internet Calls It ‘Embarrassing'

Last Updated: A video from Thailand shows a group of Indian men dancing with great energy on a stage. Indian tourists have been a hot topic of conversation on social media in recent months, and not for all the right reasons. Several clips of the tourists dancing loudly in public places abroad has sparked criticism. A clip from Thailand is the latest to face the ire of social media. It shows a group of Indian tourists dancing with great energy on a stage at Safari World, a zoo in Bangkok. Some audience members were spotted looking surprised and a bit upset in the video. The video was shared on X with the caption, 'Dear desi tourists abroad. WE BEG YOU. If you weren't a singer, dancer, stand-up comic or wildlife whisperer back home, this is not the time to start. Let's not make the whole planet suffer 2nd-hand embarrassment on our behalf." dear desi tourists abroad WE BEG YOU Reacting to the post, a user wrote, 'Our behaviour will ensure that even the 2nd and fellow 3rd world countries will stop issuing visas on arrival." Another shared, 'Embarrassing, I wouldn't mind if they had rhythm and could show some good moves, but those pot belly dancing in the group must be banned." 'This is because fellow Indians have been praising this mediocrity back home. It wouldn't happen if we start calling a pot a pot," a comment read. Another mentioned, 'The song is playing in the background. You never know if they were encouraged to do this. During our Vietnam Cruise, we were encouraged to dance and sing, and so were the Japanese and Filipino people as well. It was well organised. Background context: it was a party." top videos View all One account added, 'If there was a western pop song playing and whites dancing, you wouldn't bat an eyelid saying they are just happy and having fun. When Indian tourists do it, it's embarrassing. Stop with the self-hate buddy." Earlier this week, a group of Indian tourists went viral after doing garba on top of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The video sparked a lot of backlash. Many users felt that tourists should be more careful about where and how they choose to celebrate, especially in places with different customs and laws.