4 dead in Italian cable car accident near Naples

ROME - Four people have died and one is seriously injured after a cable car crashed to the ground near Naples in southern Italy on Thursday (April 17), mountain rescue services and firefighters said.

The accident happened at Monte Faito, a peak around 45 kilometres (28 miles) south-east of Naples.

"The cabin at the top has crashed," Umberto De Gregorio, chairman of the EAV public transport company which runs the cable car service, wrote on Facebook, calling it "a tragedy."

Several Italian media reports said one of the cables supporting the cabin had snapped.

Sixteen passengers were helped out of a cabin that stopped in mid-air near the foot of the mountain. They were evacuated one by one, using harnesses, footage on RAI public television and other media showed.

Vincenzo De Luca, head of the Campania region around Naples, told RAI that rescue operations were hampered by fog and high winds.

In 202, 14 people died in Italy when a cable car linking the northern Lake Maggiore with a nearby mountain plunged to the ground.

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Source: Reuters