Flights were cancelled and residents evacuated while an unexploded bomb believed to have been dropped by US forces during World War II was made safe in southern Japan on Sunday. The 120-centimetre (48-inch) long rusty bomb was found in late January by workers at a construction site in Miyazaki prefecture.
Japanese bomb disposal forces on Sunday safely removed the bomb after ordering 1,700 people out of their homes and delaying or cancelling more than a dozen flights into or out of Miyazaki airport.
"Everything has returned to normal now as the bomb was safely removed," a Miyazaki city official told AFP. Sixty years after the war ended unexploded bombs and shells are still occasionally found in Japan, particularly on the southern island of Okinawa, the site of an extremely bloody battle towards the end of World War II. Last month, a construction worker there was severely injured by a World War II bomb while working on an underground water pipe.