A couple of chilly reminders to always exercise caution in the mountains, even inside ski resorts.
In two separate incidents at mainland resorts this month, two women died in an avalanche and seven snowboarders spent two nights lost before being found.
Police called the snowboarders discovery alive ‘a miracle’. Some of the snowboarders in their 30s and 40s had some food and portable stoves, although they did not have tents or other winter climbing gear.
“We spent the nights eating candy in a cottage that was like an abandoned hut,” Kyodo news agency quoted one of the survivors as saying.
Hundreds of rescuers, including soldiers and police officers, had conducted a massive operation on the 1,346-metre mountain where the men had gone missing. The mountain was covered with two metres of snow.