Images showed huge snow piles reaching up to the second storey of buildings and people digging their way through roads as snow blanketed cars on either side.

Though heavy snow is not uncommon in Kamchatka -- a peninsula in Russia's Far East which stretches down towards Japan -- the unusual intensity of the storm has left the region's major city partially paralysed.

"I was recommended to declare the situation, which has led to rooftop avalanches that resulted in two deaths, a local emergency. I took that decision," the mayor of the regional capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yevgeny Belyaev, said on Telegram.

Schools have shut, and businesses have switched to remote working.

Local media outlet Kamchatka-Inform reported city residents complaining that stores were running out of bread, eggs and milk.

"The difficulties arising are purely logistical in nature and stem from travel restrictions. The deliveries are gradually resuming as roads are cleared," the regional government head, Yulia Morozova, was cited by another local website, Kamchatka Media.

Authorities blamed housing management companies for not promptly removing the piled snow and ice from rooftops on time, saying this had caused the deaths.