Three people were found dead Wednesday after an early morning fire engulfed a house on the island of Sado and spread to about 15 buildings in the neighborhood, police said.
The fire broke out about 3:45 a.m. at the house of Kohei Ikeda, 75, and took around seven hours to extinguish.
The police are trying to identify the bodies. The owner of the house, his wife and one of their sons, Satoshi Ikeda, 45, who had returned home for New Year's, remain unaccounted for, they said.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, a 71-year-old man and his mother died after fire burned part of their two-story house in the city of Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, local police said.