06 SEP 2018: The closure of a major Japanese airport flooded by a typhoon is raising worries about the impact on tourist traffic, mostly from China and Southeast Asia. Kansai International Airport officials said Wednesday they weren’t sure when the airport would reopen. Although a damaged runway had been mostly cleared, other equipment to ensure safe flying wasn’t operating.

Visitors were rushing to change flights.

About 3,000 passengers stranded at the airport overnight were given blankets and biscuits until they gradually left by boats and buses.

Japan has long had a reputation for transportation that runs like clockwork. But even that couldn’t hold up to the fury of Typhoon Jebi, whose 160 km (100-mile) per-hour winds destroyed buildings, cut off power to more than 400,000 households and left 11 people dead and 300 injured.

The airport served 28 million passengers last year, and that number is expected to grow as Japan opens up to tourism in recent years to keep its economy going. It serves Osaka as well as the port city of Kobe and the ancient capital of Kyoto, all popular destinations for tourists.

Other airports in the vicinity offer only domestic flights. Businesses seeking alternate routes and tourists in a rush to get home must take a train or use highways to get to other international airports, such as Narita in Tokyo, or Fukuoka on the southwestern island of Kyushu.

Adding to the damage was a tanker unmoored by the storm’s pounding waves and wind slammed into a bridge that is the airport’s only link to the mainland, further crippling transport.

Containers were left floating in the sea.

In Kyoto, the former imperial capital and a popular tourist destination, wooden shrine buildings and tall orange-red entrance gates were knocked down. Soaring trees fell at a shrine in Nara, another historic city.

More than 400,000 households in western and central Japan remained without power Wednesday, and electric utilities warned that it would take time to bring everyone back on line. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at least 11 people had been confirmed dead and 470 people were injured.

Flooding at the airport had largely subsided Wednesday but flight operations equipment had yet to be assessed for damage, as did the crushed part of the bridge. The airport was built on artificial islands in Osaka Bay.

Passengers stranded overnight appeared relieved but exhausted after an uneasy night in the dark.

Hideko Senoo, a 51-year-old homemaker planning a family trip to India, said the terminal was hot and dark after losing power, and food at convenience stores was sold out.

“We could not use vending machines or access the wireless network to get information,” she told Japan’s Kyodo News service.

Miki Yamada, a 25-year-old office worker planning a trip to Thailand with her friend, told Kyodo she spent the night at an airport cafeteria. “It was a rather scary night, as we were so isolated,” she said.

The Universal Studios Japan theme park in Osaka was closed for a second day Wednesday but said it would reopen Thursday.

The deaths included a man in his 70s who was blown to the ground from his apartment in Osaka prefecture. Police said at least five others died elsewhere in the prefecture after being hit by flying objects or falling from their apartments. In nearby Shiga prefecture, a 71-year-old man died when a storage building collapsed on him, and a man in his 70s died after falling from a roof in Mie, officials said.

In Nishinomiya in Hyogo prefecture, about 100 cars at a seaside dealership burned after their electrical systems were shorted out by seawater, fire officials and news reports said.