Fourteen dead and a serious child in the fall of a cable car in Italy – telam

The Each of a cable car cabin in Stresa, a resort town on Lake Maggiore in Piedmont, northern Italy, killed 14 people on Sunday., including a nine-year-old boy, and serious injuries to another five-year-old boy, rescue services said.

After offering a “final balance” of 13 deaths, Rescue services later reported that one of the two seriously injured minors, a nine-year-old boy, was unable to overcome his injuries and died.

The two children “were rushed to the Regina Margherita pediatric hospital in Turn,” spokesman Walter Milan told AFP news agency.

The five-year-old “suffered head and thoraco-abdominal trauma and lower limb fractures,” published the daily La Repubblica.

Meanwhile, the 9-year-old boy was first resuscitated and then intubated “with a guarded prognosis” after suffering head trauma, chest trauma and a broken leg, according to the newspaper La Stampa.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi expressed his “deep pain” in a statement.

President Sergio Mattarella also expressed his pain by calling for “strict compliance with all safety rules for all conditions related to the transport of people”.

The accident occurred around 12:30 p.m. local time 100 meters from the last altitude station of the cable car, with 15 people inside, according to a statement from the Ministry of Infrastructure and, according to initial assessments, the cause would have been broken. from the cable car, a cable.

The cabin fell about 15 meters, then rolled down part of the slope before crashing into a tree, a local Carabinieri official said.

The Minister of Infrastructure, Enrico Giovanni, announced the creation of a commission of inquiry.

“It is a dramatic fact that we assess with the greatest care,” he said.

The president of the Piedmont region, Alberto Cirio, declared himself “devastated”, declaring that “it is a huge tragedy that takes our breath away”.

Rescue and recovery operations were complicated as the cabin fell in the middle of the forest in an area of ​​difficult access, to the point that a fire truck heading towards the area ended up overturning across the slope from the field, without casualties, the agency said. ANSA news.

An emblematic promenade

The popular tourist cable car connects the town of Stresa to Mount Mottarone in 20 minutes on a walk that costs 20 euros, and offers a spectacular view of the Alps and Lake Maggiore, located between Switzerland and Italy, one of the most valuable destinations for Italian and foreign tourists.

The cable car runs along one of the longest cableways in Europe, It reached an altitude of 1,491 meters and was put back into service on April 24 after the shutdown due to the pandemic.

The president of Liguria, a neighboring region of Piedmont, deplored this “absurd tragedy” at a time when Italy was taking advantage of the lack of definition after months of health restrictions.

“A reopening Sunday which must 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”.

Opened in 1970, the cable car was closed between 2014 and 2016 for maintenance work.

According to the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, the service had undergone a renovation in 2016, funded by the Piedmont region and the town hall of Stresa, during which the cables were subjected to a magnetic particle analysis to confirm their reliability.

Other similar accidents

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

The last one dates back to September 5, 2005, when an 800-kilogram cement slab broke off 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.

Still in Cavalese, but more than 20 years earlier, in 1976, a cable break caused a cabin to fall, killing 42 people.