A cabin crashed from the Stresa-Mottarone cable car in Verbano with at least 11 people on board. The dead, according to the testimony of 118, would be nine. Two children in serious condition were transported to the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin.
It happened just before 1pm. The causes are not yet known but the cabin, which arrived near the last pylon, therefore at one of the highest points of the journey towards the mountain near Lake Maggiore, fell, perhaps due to failure. of a rope.
The rescue teams arrived on the spot, it took time to locate the point where she fell, because the area below is inaccessible. At the scene of the accident, the Alpine Rescue and Speleological teams are still at work together with the Fire Brigade and the Carabinieri. On the climb towards Mottarone, a fire brigade truck overturned, but none of the rescuers would have been hurt. The roads leading to the summit have been closed.
The cable car that reaches an altitude of 1491 meters was put back into operation on April 24 after the lockdown. Between 2014 and 2016 the plant had been closed and the Leitner company in Vipiteno had renewed it, with a total cost of four million, carrying out a severe test. The cable car makes a journey of about twenty minutes from the lake to Mottarone and a new ride departs every 20 minutes.
On 1 August 1970, the cable car replaced the old rack railway that had been inaugurated in 1963. Built in three years, it connects the “Lido” of Stresa in two sections, in front of Isola Bella, to Mottarone, the mountain that it rises between Lake Maggiore and Lake Orta. During the winter it is used by skiers, many from Milan, to reach the seventeen slopes between 1491 and 1270 meters.
From Cermis to the massacre on the Oetztal glacier, accidents involving cable cars and cableways
But it is very popular even without snow – the New York Times in 1954 had included Mottarone among the ten most beautiful panoramas in the world, with a view of the lake, the Borromean Islands and the surrounding Alps – to go up to the Alpinia botanical garden, and some year for the Alpyland rail track, with sleds, as well as trekking, paragliding and mountain biking.
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