at least 14 killed by the fall of a cable car

After proposing a “final toll” of 13 dead, the rescue services announced soon after that one of the two seriously injured minors, a nine-year-old boy, could not overcome his injuries and died.

According to the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, German tourists are among the victims. The information has not been confirmed by an official source.

The Italian President, Sergio Mattarella, and the prime minister Mario draghi they expressed their “deep pain”.

The accident happened around 12:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m. GMT) 100 meters from the last cable car station and could have been due to a broken cable, causing the cabin with 15 people inside to fall.

Cabin fell about 15 meters and then rolled down part of the slope before crashing into a treesaid a local Carabineros official.

The popular cable car connects the village of Stresa to Mount Mottarone in 20 minutes, which rises to almost 1,500 meters and offers spectacular views of the Alps and Lake Maggiore.

The cabin “was about to reach Mottarone. However, at one point it started to back up. It probably hit the post on the return trip and was thrown,” said Stresa mayor Marcella Severino.

In town, emotions were high. Luisa Tesserin, a 27-year-old student from Genoa, was spending the weekend by the lake.

“I came to Stresa with friends to climb to the top of Mottarone because the view is great. We took the cable car an hour before the tragedy. When we went up, we didn’t notice anything strange in the cable, everything was normal, ”he told AFPTV.

The president of the Piedmont region declared himself “devastated”. “It’s a huge tragedy, it takes our breath away” he reacted Alberto Cirio.

The first images from the authorities show firefighters and police around the remains of the hut in a wooded area whose steep slope makes access difficult.

The The Milan public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for manslaughter and negligent injury.

The cable car was closed between 2014 and 2016 for maintenance work.

Lake Maggiore, between Switzerland and Italy, is one of the most valuable destinations for Italian and foreign tourists.

The president of Liguria, a neighboring region of Piedmont, has deplored an “absurd tragedy” at a time when Italy takes advantage of the lack of refinement after months of health restrictions. “A reopening Sunday which should have been a bearer of hope,” said Giovanni Toti.

The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, expressed on Twitter, in a message in Italian, his “most sincere condolences to the families and friends who lost loved ones in this tragic accident”.

Several fatal cable car, gondola or funicular accidents have occurred in the past 50 years in Europe.

The last dates back to September 5, 2005, when an 800 kilogram block of concrete fell from the helicopter carrying it and fell on a cable car near Solden in Austrian Tyrol, killing nine German skiers.

In Italy, on February 3, 1998, an American military plane cut the cable of a cable car in Cavalese, a ski resort in the Dolomites, killing all 20 passengers in the cabin. In this city in 1976, a cable break caused a cabin to fall, killing 42 people.