Cable car accident in Italy leaves 4 injured and 100 stranded on top of a mountain for hours

Four people were injured and about 100 were stranded on a mountaintop in northwestern Italy on Tuesday after a cable car accident, authorities said. Visitors trapped on top of the mountain were later evacuated by helicopter.

No one was seriously injured following the incident on the Macugnaga cable car, which climbs to the Moro Pass at an altitude of 2,800 meters (9,000 feet), near the Swiss border, a spokesman for Alpine rescue services told the Agence France-Press news agency.

“It appears that the cabin arrived at the upper 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 upper and lower station structures.”

Three of the 15 passengers in the upper cabin were injured, along with an operator in the lower station, he said.

The accident occurred around 11:30 local time. Officials said it took about three hours for everyone who was stranded to be evacuated by helicopter.

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 hurt 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 crashed into a barrier.

He said there was no major damage to the cable car, which was renovated in 2023, but that it was undergoing checks.

The incident occurs at the height of the ski season, when many Italians and tourists flock to the mountains for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

In April, a cable car that transports tourists south of Naples crashed to the ground after a cable broke, killing four people, authorities said at the time. That accident occurred on Monte Faito, in the town of Castellammare di Stabia, just a week after the cable car, popular for its views of Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, reopened for the season.

These accidents followed a fatal incident in 2021when a cable car taking visitors to the top of a mountain overlooking Lake Maggiore in northern Italy fell to the ground, killing 14 people. Only one passenger, a small child, survived.