A tragic incident occurred near Naples in southern Italy, where a mountain cable car cabin fell to the ground, resulting in the deaths of four individuals, according to emergency services.
Preliminary reports from Italian media indicate that the victims may include two British nationals and two Israeli citizens, although these identities have not been officially confirmed.
Another person was “extremely seriously injured” in the crash at Mount Faito and airlifted to hospital, officials said.
Local media outlets said that the cabin had been near the top of the mountain when one of the cables supporting it snapped.
Prosecutors have launched an investigation as officials confirmed the victims were three passengers and the driver of the cable car.
Other passengers were rescued from a second cabin further down the mountain
A second cabin was also on the line at the time but was located near the bottom of the valley; 16 people were rescued and winched to safety.
The president of the region, Vincenzo De Luca, said all the victims were tourists.
The UK foreign office said it is in contact with Italian authorities but has not confirmed the local media reports of the identities of those killed.
De Luca added that poor weather conditions including fog, wind and rain had made it difficult for rescuers to access the area where the cabin had crashed.
More than 50 firefighters took part in the rescue efforts, the fire department said.
Italian media reported that the cable car had been traveling over a steep area when the cable snapped. Mount Faito is some 1,100m above sea level.
The mayor of Castellammare di Stabia – where the cable car was located – said it was believed a traction cable had snapped.
“The emergency brake downstream worked but not the one on the cabin that was about to reach the top of the hill,” he told Italian media.
He added that there had been regular safety checks on the cable car line which runs three kilometres from the town to the top of the mountain.
The company which runs the service, the EAV public transport firm, said the seasonal cable car had “reopened 10 days ago with all the required safety conditions”.
“What happened today is an unimaginable, unforeseeable tragedy,” EAV’s CEO Umberto de Gregorio said.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was on a trip to Washington at the time of the incident, expressed her “sincere condolences” to the families of the victims.
The Mount Faito cable car has been operating since 1952. A similar accident on the line in 1960 left four people dead.
In 2021,14 people died when a cable car linking Lake Maggiore in Italy’s northern Piedmont region with a nearby mountain plummeted to the ground. The cause was determined to be a snapped cable and emergency brake failure.
