Four members of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces were injured Monday in an explosion at a munition’s storage site located within the United States’ Kadena Air Base on Okinawa Island.
Local authorities and Japan’s Ministry of Defense have confirmed the incident, noting that the injuries are not life-threatening.
The explosion occurred at a facility managed by the Okinawa prefectural government, used for temporarily housing unexploded ordnance—much of it remnants from World War II. The base is jointly operated but the facility itself is under Japanese control.
According to initial reports from Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, the explosion happened as the soldiers were inspecting an old bomb and attempting to remove rust from the device. The cause of the detonation is still under investigation.
The U.S. Air Force stated that no American personnel were involved or harmed in the incident.
Okinawa, which witnessed one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, remains littered with unexploded bombs more than seven decades later. Authorities estimate over 1,800 tons of buried ordnance remain scattered across the island, often uncovered during construction or infrastructure work.
This marks the first major accident involving Japan’s Self-Defense Forces’ ordnance disposal unit since its formation in 1974, underlining the enduring danger posed by unexploded wartime munitions.
In a separate but related incident last October, a U.S. bomb from World War II accidentally detonated at a commercial airport in southern Japan, tearing a crater into the tarmac and briefly halting flights, highlighting the ongoing challenges of safely managing these volatile remnants of war.
