The transport ministry started excavating a taxiway at Miyazaki Airport in southwestern Japan on early Sunday after discovering what appears to be another unexploded World War II bomb, following the explosion of one at the airport earlier this month.

Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways said they may cancel some flights to and from the airport that had been scheduled for later Sunday due to the excavation.

A local office of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism had earlier said the excavation would begin on Saturday night.

The office said it found the object after conducting a magnetic survey on Wednesday and Thursday around the taxiway where the 250-kilogram bomb exploded on Oct 2, leaving asphalt fragments scattered over a radius of some 200 meters, including the runway. No one was injured in the explosion.

The survey detected a 1.3-meter-wide object 1.6 meters below the ground, near the site of the recent explosion, according to the ministry.

Formerly an air base of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the airport saw two unexploded U.S. bombs found in recent years, one in 2011 and the other in 2021.