[/floatr]Brisbane Times: Missing Australian man feared dead in Japanese ski resortSCOTT McKAY was due to fly home from a Japan ski holiday yesterday, but instead local police believe he might be dead after leaving a bar and disappearing three nights ago. Mr McKay, an IT consultant from Brisbane, was in the northern ski town of Niseko when he disappeared after drinking at a local bar, Wild Bill's, on Thursday night. After several hours' drinking with two friends, he decided at about 1.30am to walk back alone to the accommodation the three shared. It was a 10-minute walk, local police say. His two friends left Wild Bill's about 15 minutes later but when they arrived at their pension there was no sign of Mr McKay and his belongings were untouched. He has not been seen since, despite two days of searching by emergency services and dozens of volunteers. One of his friends who had been at the bar with him, Ben Johnstone, posted a message on a Japanese snow website asking for help. "Our mate has gone missing," Mr Johnstone wrote. In a later post he wrote: "He had been drinking fairly heavily. But he is generally a very responsible drunk. He was in a good head space and could walk fine." It was not snowing heavily the night he disappeared, but Niseko locals said there had been heavy falls in the past two nights and there are fears he may have fallen or lost his way and has since been covered by snow.
