Construction vessels work at the site of a future Marine Corps airfield in Oura Bay at Camp Schwab, Okinawa, Nov. 27, 2025. (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes)
Eight crew members were rescued unharmed over the weekend after a work boat capsized at the construction site of a new U.S. Marine Corps airfield in northern Okinawa, Japan’s coast guard said.
The 31-foot vessel overturned around 9:40 a.m. Saturday near Cape Henoko while crews were working to untangle anchor lines from other work boats, according to a news release that day from the coast guard’s Nakagusuku office. The accident occurred roughly 2,000 feet offshore.
All eight crew members were pulled from the water by a nearby vessel before their boat sank, a coast guard spokesman told Stars and Stripes by phone Monday.
Authorities deployed an oil containment barrier around the vessel and reported a small amount of floating oil that later dispersed, according to the release.
A crane barge lifted the capsized boat from the water shortly after 3 p.m., the coast guard said. The cause of the accident remains under investigation.
The incident occurred at the site of a long-contested airfield being built in Henoko to replace Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, a base in the densely populated city of Ginowan.
The relocation project has been a persistent source of political tension on Okinawa, where many residents oppose the construction despite support from the Japanese government.
Construction of the replacement airfield is expected to last until at least 2033 and cost nearly $6 billion, according to Japan’s Ministry of Defense. Officials say the runway may become operational around 2036.
Work to stabilize the soft seabed of Oura Bay began in late 2024, when contractors started driving tens of thousands of sand piles needed before land reclamation can begin.
As of late January, about 4,700 of the roughly 71,000 piles required for the project had been installed, a spokesman for the prefecture’s Seashore Disaster Prevention Division said by phone Monday.
Some Japanese government officials speak to the press only on condition of anonymity.
AloJapan.com