Northern Japan snowed under after two-week whiteout

by Hiroshi HIYAMA

Residents of northern Japan were sheltering from deep snow up to the rooftops in some areas on Thursday after a two-week whiteout.

Several cities have seen record snowfall this month, causing traffic disruption and several fatalities.

And more is expected, according to the national weather agency, which issued a series of warnings in recent days for heavy snow and strong winds, particularly along the Sea of Japan coast facing Russia and the Koreas.

"I have been here for 10 years, and I have never seen anything like this," a resident of the remote Sukayu area of the Aomori region told TV network TBS in comments broadcast Thursday.

"If you look at the volume of snowfall per day, there wasn't any single stand-out episode. But it accumulated little by little," he said.

Sukayu is buried under five meters (16 feet) of snow, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, reaching the roofs of two-storey buildings.

"We may see a warning-level snowstorm, if snow clouds stay in the same location," the agency's Aomori unit said in a bulletin on Thursday.

Meanwhile, in the streets of Tsunan town in Niigata, more than 3.5 meters of snow has piled up.

At one Niigata ski resort last week, holidaymakers delighted in and sometimes struggled with all the fresh powder on the slopes, while heavy-duty road maintenance vehicles and hotel owners were busy clearing snow from dawn until dusk.

Hundreds of vehicles have been stranded for hours at various spots along snow-covered highways in recent days.

Aomori has counted at least nine deaths linked to snow this winter, including six people who were shoveling it from rooftops. Niigata has seen at least 12 snow-related deaths.

Three workers at a secluded mountain resort in the Fukushima region were found dead Tuesday after they apparently trekked across a snowy mountain for maintenance work at the source of a hot spring, local media reported.

Police are reportedly investigating whether the deaths were linked to high concentrations of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas that is known to exist around the volcanic region.

Piles of snow could have trapped the gas at the hot spring's source, the reports said.

© Agence France-Presse