Compiled by TAN SIN CHOW, ZAKIAH KOYA AND R. ARAVINTHAN
THE runways at a major international airport in India were closed for five hours to make way for a major temple festival nearby, Malaysia Nanban reported.
The Thiruvananthapuram International Airport in the capital city of Kerala, a southwestern coastal state of India, handles about 30,000 flights a year.
It is near the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple whose origins are said to date back to Vedic times.
The temple has existed in its current form since the early 18th century.
Festivals are held at the temple every April and November, so the airport would shut its runways for the processions.
On Nov 9, deities from the temple were taken on a procession that crossed the airport runway.
The deities were bathed on Shankumugham Beach and then brought back to the temple.
As such, the runways were shut down and flights were on hold between 4am and 9am that day.
Regular operations resumed after that.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
