More than 150 people in the Tokyo area sustained injuries including broken bones between Monday night and Tuesday morning, when a relatively heavy snowfall blanketed the metropolitan area, authorities said.
The snow also led to delays and cancellations of JR train runs in the metropolitan area, affecting more than 100,000 passengers, the operator said.
Some bullet trains were also delayed.
At least 58 people were hurt in Tokyo, 40 in Saitama Prefecture and 23 in Chiba Prefecture, firefighters and local officials said, noting many had slipped and fallen.
Central Tokyo had 1 cm of snow as of 5 a.m. while Yokohama had 2 cm, the Meteorological Agency said. As much as 25 cm fell at Lake Kawaguchi in Yamanashi Prefecture.
Snow-related injuries were also reported in western Japan. But in Kyoto at least, a boy's life was saved because of snow.
At around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, a 15-year-old high school student jumped from the balcony of his fifth-floor apartment for reasons still under investigation.
The boy sustained only broken bones because the ground had been softened after rain and snowfall overnight, the police said.
