A mother fell 150 metres to her death from a cable car in Italy after being swept up the mountain’s lift system in front of her horrified family.
The woman, named as Margherita Lega, was hiking with her family during a holiday in the Italian Alps when the freak tragedy occurred at around 11am today.
The 41-year-old woman was loading luggage onto the cable car machine – a small ropeway used to transport luggage and objects rather than people – when she became caught in the contraption and it suddenly ignited.
She held on as he carried her more than 50 yards over the edge of a cliff, before she could no longer support his weight and let go, falling to her death. the Republic reports.
Ms Lega’s two children, who are believed to have witnessed their mother’s horrific death, are being cared for while her husband has been taken to the local police station following the horrific incident, which is now being investigated.
Carabinieri at the scene of the tragedy in the Italian Alps
A helicopter was used by search and rescue teams to locate and recover the woman’s body.
Emergency vehicles are seen in the Ossola forest, where the Italian tourist died after falling
The family was reportedly trying to reach a mountain cabin in the Calasca Castiglione area when the woman fell into the deep ravine.
Calasca Castiglione mayor Silvia Tipaldi said she was “shocked” by the tragic death and shared her condolences with the family.
“We are in shock,” he said, adding: “We are awaiting verifications from the magistrate at the plant to have more information on what unfortunately turned out to be a tragedy.”
The cable car, which connects the village of Olino to the Drocala alpine pasture they were trying to reach, is said to cover a distance of around 400 metres and cross a steep ravine.
It is usually operated by two people, at the two points above and below. The starting point is reportedly not visible from where the controls are at the top.
More than 100 emergency personnel, including firefighters, police and mountain rescue teams, were called to the scene.
With the help of a helicopter and climbers on the ground, they finally located the woman’s body in the valley.
Alpine rescue team members recovered her body by disembarking from the helicopter and airlifting the woman out of the ravine.
Prosecutors have reportedly sealed off the cable car while they investigate whether all the correct safety measures were observed at the site.
The woman, named as Margherita Lega, was walking near Calasca Castiglione (pictured) when the incident occurred at around 11am this morning.
The file image shows a cable car. The one involved in the incident is designed to carry luggage rather than people.
The system was reported to have suddenly rebooted and the reason for the surge is being investigated.
The incident took place in the Anzasca Valley, a popular hiking area in Piedmont, northeast of Turin.
Ms Lega is said to have been from Fiavè, a small town in the Trento region of north-eastern Italy, a four-hour drive from Calasca Castiglione.
Italy has been rocked by cable car tragedies in the past, with 14 people killed when a cable snapped and sent a carriage 20 metres (66 feet) into the ground in 2021.
A cable car carrying 15 passengers crashed in northern Italy in 2021, killing 14 people.
The cable car was carrying passengers to a mountain overlooking Lake Maggiore in the Western Alps when it descended 300 metres from the station.
Haunting footage from the disaster shows how close passengers were to safety before the cabin plunged down the mountain.
A broken cable is shown, causing the car and its passengers to plummet downwards as they are thrown brutally through the cabin.
In a separate video, the car can be seen flying and falling out of sight behind the crest of a hill where it crashed, killing 14 of the 15 people on board.
In another gondola disaster, 20 people died in the Dolomites when a US Air Force pilot crashed into cables holding up a car full of tourists.
The 1998 tragedy in Cavalese occurred 22 years after another in the same town, in which 43 people died when their cabin slid 300 feet and was crushed.
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