Two men were killed while bathing when the roof of the inn they were staying at in Niigata Prefecture collapsed under the weight of accumulated snow, according to police.
Shinodakan inn, in the city of Ojiya, had been damaged by the Oct. 23 earthquake. Its roof collapsed at around 8:15 p.m. Wednesday under the weight of about 1.5 meters of snow, investigators said.
Police said the collapse was probably caused by the impact of roughly 70 cm of snow from an adjacent second-floor rooftop falling onto the roof over the bathing room.