Three tourists were among four people who died when a cable car crashed in southern Naples, Italy, including a British woman and an Israeli woman, said an Italian official on Friday.
Only two of the three foreign victims have been identified since a Thursday accident, said Marco de Rosa, spokesman for the mayor of Vico Equense, where one of the fatalities came from.
According to the initial information, a traction cable was broken and a car crashed after a cable car up and down while crossing Monte Faito in the city of Castellammare di Stil. The accident occurred just one week after the cable car, popular with its sight over Mount Vesuvi and Bay of Naples, was reopened for the season.
Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into multiple murders and guilty disasters.
According to officials, a fifth person, who is also believed to be a foreign tourist, was injured and hospitalized in Naples. Sixteen passengers were helped by the other cable car that stuck in the middle of the mountain foot after the incident.
The alpine rescue of Italy, along with more than 50 firefighters, the police and civil protection services worked on the site all Thursday night.
« The traction cable was broken. The emergency brake downstream, but obviously not that of the cabin entering the station, » said Castellammare mayor Luigi Vicinanza on Thursday. He added that there had been periodic security controls on the telephone line, which runs through three kilometers from the city to the top of the mountain.
The company says it met the security conditions
The company that led the service, the public transport firm EAV, emphasized that the seasonal cable car had been reopened with all the necessary security conditions.
« The reopening had occurred a week ago after three months of tests every day, day and night, » said EAV President Umberto de Gregorio. « This is an inexplicable thing. »
The researchers made checks on the functionality of the cable car and the possibility that the strong wind of recent days would be between the causes of the accident.
A cable car accident in May 2021 in northern Italy killed 14 people, including six Israeli, including a family of four. In 1998, a United States Military Raig de Baix Flight cut off the cable of a cavalleès ski lift, in the Dolomites, killing 20 people.
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