Four hurt, 100 stranded after Italy cable car accident
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A helicopter helping to evacuate around 100 people stranded at high altitude, following the failure of the Macugnaga cable car in Verbania, in Italy's northwestern Piedmont region, on Dec 30.
PHOTO: EPA
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ROME – Four people were injured and around 100 were stranded atop a mountain in north-west Italy on Dec 30 after a cable car accident, the authorities said.
No one was seriously injured following the incident on the Macugnaga cable car, which travels up to the Moro Pass at 2,800m altitude near the Swiss border, a spokesman for the Alpine rescue services told AFP.
“It appears that the cabin arrived at the top station at excessive speed, which caused the accident,” the service said in a statement.
In a separate statement, the fire service said the accident involved two cabins, which “impacted the structures of the upper and lower stations”.
Three of the 15 passengers in the upper cabin were hurt, while an operator at the lower station was also injured, it said.
Around 100 people were stranded up the mountain, but some three hours after the crash at 11.30am local time, everyone had been evacuated by helicopter.
Mr Filippo Besozzi, administrator of the company that manages the cable car, told the ANSA news agency that the most seriously injured was a 59-year-old man who had a wound on his arm.
He said there had been a “technical problem” and the cable car did not slow down properly as it entered the station, and hit a barrier.
He said there was no significant damage to the cable car, which was renovated in 2023, but it was undergoing checks.
The incident comes at the peak of the ski season, when many Italians and tourists flock to the mountains for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
In May 2021, 14 people died in a cable car accident on the Mottarone mountain overlooking Lake Maggiore in northern Italy after the cable snapped. Only a five-year-old Israeli boy survived. AFP
No one was seriously injured during the incident involving the Macugnaga cable car system.
PHOTO: EPA
