Heavy snow that blanketed eastern Japan over the holiday weekend left one man dead and 900 others injured, as Tokyo commuters on Tuesday took to the slippery streets.
A low-pressure system, dubbed a “bomb cyclone” by local press, dumped eight centimetres of snow in nine hours, the heaviest snowfall in the region since January 2006, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
A 71-year-old man in Shiojiri city, Nagano prefecture, died after falling into an open drain as he cleared snow around his house, a fire service spokesman said.
National broadcaster NHK said at least 891 injuries had been recorded in Tokyo and the area around it, many of them elderly people who had slipped on snow-covered streets or motorists involved in accidents.
Major train services resumed operations in Tokyo, although many sections of road remained closed while crews cleared frozen snow.