Singapore’s state carrier said yesterday it would suspend half of its daily flights between the city-state and Tokyo as demand weakened following a nuclear scare in ravaged Japan.
Singapore Airlines (SIA) will halt two of its four flights between Changi Airport and Tokyo’s Haneda Airport from Sunday, the airline said on its Web site.
“Flights SQ635 and SQ636, which operate between Singapore and Haneda will be suspended from 27 March 2011,” a post on SIA’s main Web site read.
An SIA spokesman told AFP the suspension was owing to a slump in customers going to -Japan after a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the country’s northeast.
The twin disasters triggered a crisis at a tsunami-hit nuclear power plant about 250km from Tokyo, where workers have been struggling to bring overheating reactors under control.
“We are seeing weakening demand in and out of Tokyo due to the situation in Japan,” he said.
Kyodo News yesterday reported that smoke and steam were again rising from damaged reactors at the troubled Fukushima plant.
White steam-like vapor was seen rising from reactor 2 and what looked like white hazy smoke from reactor 3, Kyodo said, adding that efforts to spray water and restore electricity had temporarily stalled.
Abnormal levels of radiation were also detected in shipments of certain vegetables and milk from four prefectures near the plant, fueling public anxiety about contamination from a radiation leak.
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