Police and firefighters said Saturday that they had found four charred bodies following a fire that gutted the main hall of a Buddhist temple and a connected two-story house Friday night in the town of Hiranai, Aomori Prefecture.
The fire broke out around midnight Friday at the residence of Toshiaki Tsuji, the 68-year-old chief priest of Jorinji Temple, and completely destroyed the wooden house and 830-sq.-meter temple hall, police said.
The four bodies police recovered are believed to be Tsuji, Mihoko Nakagawa, Tsuji's 35-year-old daughter, and Nakagawa's two sons -- Kodai, 5, and Koya, 2, they said.
Tsuji's wife, Noriko, 63, their other daughter, Yukari, 37, and Yukari's daughter, Yukiko, 12, managed to escape from the fire, police said.