TOKYO - Two men are presumed dead after their bodies were recovered following an avalanche in Japan, police said on Monday, a day after the off-piste accident in the central region of Nagano.
Japanese authorities declined to identify the pair, but United States ski magazine Mountain Gazette reported that one of the dead was American professional skier Kyle Smaine.
Two men who were travelling with him posted Instagram updates saying he had been killed in the avalanche.
Search teams found two men “in cardio-respiratory arrest” on Monday, police official Tomohiro Kushibiki told AFP, using a term commonly employed in Japan before a death can be confirmed by a doctor.
The missing two had been outside the patrolled areas of a ski resort in Otari village along with 11 other skiers and snowboarders, including Americans and Canadians, when the incident took place on Sunday.
The others were able to return down the mountain, but the two foreign nationals were still missing by Sunday night.
Mr Kushibiki said he could not confirm the identities of the two men found Monday, or their nationalities.
But Mountain Gazette said Mr Smaine, 31, had been killed in an avalanche in Nagano on Sunday.
The outlet said he was with another professional skier, Mr Adam U, and the publication’s senior photographer Grant Gunderson.
“Yesterday was my absolute worst nightmare scenario,” Mr Gunderson wrote in an Instagram post published on Monday.
He said an avalanche had been triggered by a skier, and Mr Smaine “was thrown 50m by the air blast and buried and killed”.
Last week, a cold snap blanketed much of Japan in heavy snow, including Nagano, a popular region for snow sports that draws overseas tourists.
An avalanche warning and snow warning from the Japan Meteorological Agency are currently in place for the area.
Fans of Mr Smaine were quick to leave tributes on a video he had posted on Instagram on Sunday showing him skiing off-piste.
“This is what brings me back to Japan each winter. Unbelievable snow quality, non-stop storms, and really fun terrain that seems to get better (the) more exploring you do,” Mr Smaine had written in a comment accompanying the video. AFP
