The body of a man was found following an avalanche Sunday on Mt. Norikura on the border of Nagano and Gifu prefectures in central Japan, with two other people injured, local police said.
Five people were caught in the avalanche that occurred around 10 a.m. on the Nagano side of the mountain but the two others were uninjured, according to the police.
Two men from Shiga Prefecture, 41 and 49, who sustained light injuries, had been with the man believed dead when they were hit by the snowslide.
"I only realized that an avalanche was heading our way when someone ahead of me cried out but I was quickly caught up in it," the 49-year-old man told the police. "I only stopped when a felled tree caught me."
The avalanche in the Northern Japan Alps, was about 200 meters wide and slid 300 meters, according to the local police, possibly a surface avalanche in which a layer of freshly fallen snow slides over a dense layer of packed snow underneath it.
Nagano's meteorological observatory had issued an avalanche advisory for the Norikura and nearby Kamikochi areas because of heavy snow that fell from Friday night through Saturday noon. More than 30 centimeters of snowfall had been recorded in Mt. Norikura by Saturday.
Earlier Sunday, local fire officials received a call that several people were caught in an avalanche at the Senjojiki Cirque, a popular hiking trail, in the Central Japan Alps in Nagano Prefecture.
A 40-year-old man from Aichi Prefecture was taken to a hospital, but is not in critical condition, local authorities said.
