A powerful snowstorm that has been hitting Japan since last week has killed 17 people and injured at least 93, in addition to chaos in the land and air transport sectors, and cut power to thousands of homes, Japanese officials said

The storm has weighed on the northern and coastal parts of the archipelago since last week, leading to widespread transport chaos and delays in services, and until last Saturday, 11 people were killed due to bad weather.

Airports canceled or postponed hundreds of flights, and trains stopped working definitively in the northern region over the weekend, according to a statement from the Ministry of transport.

More snowfall on Saturday and Sunday, which coincided with Christmas, killed 6 people, according to the fire and Disaster Management Agency. The agency noted that a large number of people among the deceased lost their lives, while they were cleaning the roofs from the frozen snow that had accumulated on them.

The agency noted that in some parts of northern Japan, snowfall was three times higher than the general average. The storm also led to a power outage for about 20 thousand residential units in the north of the country, until Sunday morning, as the competent teams worked to restore the current by Sunday evening, according to the minister of economy and industry.