Airport closed as rains sink runway
Updated: 2011-07-29 16:21
By Yan Weijue (chinadaily.com.cn)
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An airport in Southwest China's Sichuan province has suspended its air service indefinitely after the runway was found to be sinking due to repeated torrential rain.
The manager of Panzhihua city airport confirmed Thursday to the Chengdu Business Daily that the airport is sparing no effort to fix the problem, but could offer no timetable on when flights to Kunming in Yunnan province, Chengdu of Sichuan and Chongqing municipality will resume.
He said heavy rain since June caused small landslides at the airport, which sank and shifted the runway.
The Panzhihua airport was opened in 2003 after three years of construction. It is built on a mountain at a height of 1,976 meters above sea level. Up to 58 million cubic meters of soil and stone were backfilled, with the largest backfill depth at 123 meters.
It is the second time this year that the airport has suspended its air service due to problems with the ground. The airport was closed in late February to repair a similar problem and reopened on April 30.