More than 40 injured after avalanche struck while students were climbing near Nasu Onsen ski resort north of Tokyo 
 
 Seven high school students and a teacher have died and more than 40 people have been injured after an avalanche hit ski slopes in Japan. A total of 52 students and 11 teachers from seven high schools were taking part in a three-day mountaineering expedition near the Nasu Onsen resort, 93 miles (150km) north of Tokyo, when the incident occurred at about 9.20am (00.20am GMT) on Monday. Seven students and one teacher were found with no vital signs, rescue officials said. Dozens of troops were involved in rescue efforts, amid bad weather and heavy snowfall. The area had seen more than 30cm of fresh snow since Sunday and recent warm weather had further raised the avalanche risk. These are all a recipe for avalanche creation.” 
 
 The Nasu Onsen family ski resort, which has two lifts and one rope-tow, ended its ski season on 20 March. The Tochigi education board said 51 students in mountaineering clubs and 11 teachers from seven high schools were participating in the climbing lesson event that began on Saturday.
– What started as a snow-filled trip for seven schools in Japan has ended in tragedy. The BBC reports that eight high school students are believed to have been killed in an avalanche that hit a ski resort 90 miles north of Tokyo on Monday. Some 70 students and teachers were believed to have been present, with about half those who survived suffering injuries. The incident occurred near Nasu, which has seen about a foot of snow fall since Sunday. That snow "condensed [with the warmer weather], and then once you have somebody on top of that, that creates a trigger," a meteorologist tells the Guardian. "These are all a recipe for avalanche creation." Indeed, an avalanche warning was in effect at the time. The Japan Times and Guardian report the ski season had closed last week at the Nasuonsen Family Ski Resort; the students who arrived Saturday were about two-and-a-half hours away from the conclusion of Monday's climbing event when the avalanche struck near the upper part of the slope. NBC News specifies that the weekend event was a "mountain climbing safety training exercise."