BUSAN, Ferry services between South Korea’s Busan and Japan’s Tsushima Island resumed Saturday after a three-year suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Busan Port Authority said two ferry vessels departed from a port in the southeastern city at 8:30 a.m. and 10:10 a.m., and arrived at Hitakatsu Port on the southwestern Japanese island 1 1/2 hours later.
Tsushima is the closest Japanese island to the Korean Peninsula.
With the resumption, Busan has now reopened all four sea routes with Japan that were halted in April 2020 due to the coronavirus.
Busan previously restarted ferry services with Fukuoka on Nov. 4, 2022, followed by the reopening of the routes with Osaka and Shimonoseki.
The Busan-Tsushima route was once served by 11 ships and accounted for 60 percent of the sea passenger traffic between Busan and Japan.
For the time being, two South Korean boats — the PanStar Tsushima Lin from PanStar Group and the Nina from Starline Co. — will operate on the route once a day on Saturdays and Sundays, carrying a maximum of 100 passengers per trip, according to the port authority.
Source: Yonhap News Agency