Six people, including a child, were left injured after a cable car slammed into a station barrier while approaching a mountain summit ‘too quickly’ in Italy.
Around one hundred people were also left stranded following the incident, which took place at the Macugnaga cable car, in the Verbano-Cusio-Ossola region of Piedmont.
Local media reports claim the cable car arrived at the station, over 9,000ft in the air, too quickly.
The surrounding ski slopes were closed, and the ski lift was halted following the incident. Those stranded are being evacuated from the mountain by helicopter.
Firefighters are working on the scene to rescue those injured and stranded.
The six injured were immediately treated by on-site medics, but are set to be transported to a local hospital via air ambulance.
Filippo Besozzi, the director of Macugnaga Trasporti e Servizi, told the Corriere: ‘We had a technical problem. The cabin carrying the skiers arrived at the station too quickly.
‘We activated the emergency brakes, but despite this, the cabin hit the safety barriers.’
The surrounding ski slopes were closed, and the ski lift was halted following the incident (Pictured: The cable car station)
‘The cabin that was ascending had about fifteen passengers aboard, and among them was one person with an arm injury.
‘Others only suffered grazes. Everyone was taken to 118 and evacuated by helicopter.
‘The difficulty now is to evacuate 94 people at the Basso Moro station without an emergency.
‘They are gathered inside the cable car and are obviously not affected by the accident, but they do need to be evacuated, and that’s why the firefighters are working with helicopters. I think everything will be resolved in a few hours,’ he said.
Besozzi reassured that none of the skiers were left with serious injuries, and that no one’s life is in danger due to the incident.
The ski lift, built in 1962, underwent a major overhaul in early 2023, including the replacement of motors, pulleys, and cabins.
The work cost €2million, of which €1.8million was funded by the Piedmont Region and €200,000 by the Municipality of Macugnaga.
It comes after a British couple died alongside two others when a cable car they were travelling in plummeted 100ft into an Italian mountainside in April.
Elaine Winn, 58, and her husband Graeme Winn, 64, were just 20 seconds away from the top of Monte Faito, which overlooks the bay of Naples, when tragedy struck.
Local media reports claim the cable car arrived at the station, over 9,000ft in the air, too quickly
Six people, including a child were injured in the accident. Around 100 others were left stranded
The couple had set off up the mountain in one of the cableway’s two cabins, leaving from the station in the historic town of Castellammare di Stabia at 2.40pm.
Six minutes later, with the cabin understood to have nearly reached the safety of the terminal at the top of the 3,700ft peak, it ground to a halt.
The cabin then plummeted nearly 100ft into the tree-covered ravine below, with its metal walls crumpled by thick branches as it split into pieces.
Parts of it became lodged in the tree canopy, while other bits of debris rolled down the slope, with the people inside thrown across the forest.
And in 2021, 14 people were killed, and one child was left with serious injuries after a horror accident in which a mountain-top cable car plunged 65ft to the ground in northern Italy.
The cable car was carrying passengers to the top of the Stresa-Mottarone line in the Piedmont region of the western Alps when it dropped just 1,000ft away from the station.
Stresa mayor Marcella Severino said engineers believe the accident near the 4,900ft summit was caused by one of the cables breaking, which sent the car careening until it hit a pylon and then fell to the ground.
At that point, the car overturned ‘two or three times before hitting some trees’.
The director Macugnaga Trasporti e Servizi said the accident was caused by a ‘technical problem’
It was thought that 13 passengers were killed instantly, while two young children aged five and nine were airlifted to Turin’s Regina Margherita children’s hospital.
Hospital spokesman Pier Paolo Berra said at the time that one of the children died after several attempts to restart his heart failed and ‘there was nothing more we could do’.
Images from the site showed the crumpled car in a clearing of a thick patch of pine trees near the summit of the Mottarone peak overlooking Lake Maggiore, a popular tourist spot.