Italy cable car fall: 14 dead after accident near Lake Maggiore
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media captionFirst pictures have emerged after the cable car fell on a mountain in northern Italy
Fourteen people including a child have been killed, and another child is seriously injured after a cable car fell on a mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy on Sunday.
The accident happened on a service transporting passengers from the resort town of Stresa up the nearby Mottarone mountain in the region of Piedmont.
Images from the scene show the wreckage lying in a steep wooded area.
The victims included foreign nationals, the local mayor said.
"We are devastated, in pain," Marcella Severino, mayor of Stresa, told broadcaster RAI.
Two children aged five and nine were airlifted to hospital in Turin. The nine-year-old later died. The five-year-old was conscious upon arrival and was undergoing surgery for multiple fractures, the hospital said.
The death toll steadily rose in the hours after the accident as the wreckage was searched.
How did the crash happen?
It reportedly happened at about 12:30 local time (10:30 GMT) on Sunday.The cause of the incident remains unclear, but local reports suggest the cable carrying the vehicle may have failed about 300m (984ft) from the top of the mountain.
The cabin fell about 20m to the ground and rolled over several times down the slope before being stopped by trees, Mayor Severino said.
Nearby hikers heard a loud hiss before the accident, she added.
Police and fire officials were among those who responded, with rescuers facing a crash site on steep and difficult terrain.
Walter Milan, an alpine rescue spokesman, told television network RaiNews24 that the cable car was left "crumpled" having fallen from a high height.
