Cable car tragedy in Italy: Four dead, one injured near popular resort

Italy's rescue service is at the site of a cable car crash. Photo / Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico

• Four people died and one was injured after a cable car crash in southern Italy.
• The accident occurred near Castellammare di Stabia when the cable reportedly snapped.
• Sixteen others were safely rescued from a second cable car that stopped mid-air.

Four people have been killed and a fifth badly injured after a cable car crashed to the ground in southern Italy, close to a resort popular with British tourists.

The accident happened on a line that connects the seaside town of Castellammare di Stabia to Monte Faito, a beauty spot above the coast. Its steel cable reportedly snapped.

The cable car route is close to Sorrento, a seaside resort that for decades has been popular with British visitors.

Among the casualties were four foreign tourists, Italian media reported. Their nationalities are not yet known.

The survivor was taken by air ambulance to hospital.

Sixteen people who were in a second cable car, which stopped in mid-air near the foot of the mountain, were safely rescued.

They had to be evacuated one by one, with rescuers using harnesses.

“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”.

The accident happened as bad weather, including heavy rain and high winds, swept over many parts of Italy.

Mist and high winds hampered the rescue operation.

The cable car route, which lies nearly 50km south of Naples and the ancient Roman town of Pompeii, was opened in 1952.

Tourist hotspot

This is not the first time that tragedy has struck. In 1960, four people were killed when a cabin fell to the ground.

Castellammare di Stabia is located north of Sorrento, which commands views of the Bay of Naples and is a popular base for exploring the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii and the island of Capri.

This is the second serious cable car accident in Italy in four years.

In 2021, 14 people died when a cable car linking Lago Maggiore with a nearby mountain, in the north of the country, plunged to the ground. Among the dead were five Israelis.

The accident happened on a route that takes tourists from the resort town of Stresa up the nearby Mottarone mountain in the region of Piedmont.

The crash was caused by a snapped cable and a failure of the emergency brakes.