Avalanches in and around Japanese ski resorts have left four people dead.
Among them were two Argentine men aged 50 and 54 who were visiting Ryuoo Ski Park in Nagano, about 400 kilometres northwest of Tokyo, on Sunday.
The pair were together with a man from New Zealand and a man and a woman from Australia.
"When they skied off-piste shortly after 2pm, an avalanche occurred and engulfed the two Argentines," a police spokeswoman said on Monday.
"Their friends made an emergency call and rescuers found their bodies in the snow," she said, adding that the avalanche was 30 metres wide and 200 metres long.
There were also two deadly avalanches in Niigata prefecture north of Nagano on Saturday.
A 48-year-old Japanese man was killed while snowboarding, while another aged 35 was found dead in an off-piste area of a ski resort.
Separately, rescuers were searching for three Japanese in their 50s and 60s who went missing while mountaineering on skis in Nagano, police said.
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