Video images of Japan's Sendai Airport clearly show the extent of flooding to the apron and runway, as tidal water swamped the gates and surrounded the terminal building.
But there is no immediate evidence that any aircraft were caught in the deluge. Sendai Airport, which has a single runway 09/27 and a terminal with about half-a-dozen airbridge gates, is located only a few hundred metres from the Japanese east coast.
Preliminary assessment of the flight timetable for Sendai suggests that the airport handles around 40 flights per day.
But the schedule appears to indicate that, at the time of the earthquake - given as 14:46 Japanese time - all the flights that had arrived beforehand would have already departed again.
These include three international services which are listed on Sendai's schedule for today.
NOTAM information from Sendai states that the VOR/DME navigational facility is out of action due to "earthquake trouble". The amount of damage to the airport's terminal infrastructure is unclear.
Source: Flight International
