At least 13 people died and three were seriously injured on Sunday when a cable car linking Italy’s Lake Maggiore with a nearby mountain in the Alps plunged 20 metres to the ground, local officials and rescuers said.
The Stresa-Mottarone cable car takes tourists and locals from the town on Lake Maggiore, almost 1,400 metres above sea level to the top of the Mottarone mountain in 20 minutes.
“We are devastated, in pain,” Marcella Severino, Stresa’s mayor told national broadcaster RAI, while Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi voiced his condolences to the families of the victims, “with a special thought” for the injured children.
The accident happened as the cable car was travelling up the mountain, with the cabin dropping some 20 metres and rolling several times down the steep slopes before it was stopped by trees, Severino said.
People hiking on the mountain heard a loud hiss just before the crash, she said, adding that it was believed to have been caused by one of the cables…