More than 30 tourists, including a 10-year-old child, who were trapped overnight in cable cars thousands of metres up in the French Alps were set to reach the ground early Friday, the operators said.
The cable cars "restarted five
minutes ago, the last cable (which was blocking the system) was
untangled," Mathieu Dechavanne, CEO of the Mont-Blanc Company that manages
the system, told AFP just before 8am.
He said the remaining passengers
could now be rescued without the use of helicopters.
Around 110 people were initially
trapped when the cable cars became stuck at 3:40pm Thursday at an
altitude of
3,800 metres (12,500 feet) in the Mont Blanc region after an unexplained
technical incident.
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| During the night, a team of five rescuers, three French and two Italian police officers also attempted to reach the trapped tourists. |
Seventy-seven people were evacuated,
including 48 who were airlifted out by helicopter and around 30 travelling in
cars closest to the ground who were able to climb down with the help of
rescuers.
But with darkness falling and the
weather deteriorating, the rescue operation was suspended, leaving 33 tourists,
one of them a 10-year-old child, forced to spend the night dangling in mid-air.
"We were in contact with them
throughout the night, the people were cold" but there did not appear to be
any health emergencies, the local police chief, Stephane Bozon, told AFP as the
rescue operation resumed early Friday.
The prefect of the Haute-Savoie
region, Georges François Leclerc, said late Thursday that rescuers were forced
to stop their operation at 8:45pm as they could not "guarantee the safety
of the pilots, rescuers and the people stuck in the cars".
During the night, a team of five
rescuers, three French and two Italian police officers also attempted to reach
the trapped tourists.
One of the officers managed to get
into a car which contained a 10-year-old child.
Those still stuck had access to
emergency blankets, energy bars and bottles of water in the cars.
The incident was caused by cables
that got crossed for "unknown reasons", but a gust of wind is thought
to have played a part, Dechavanne said on Thursday.
The employees of the company were
not able to repair the cars, forcing an evacuation operation to begin around
5:00pm.
The cable cars connect Aiguille du
Midi on the French side of the mountains with Pointe Helbronner on the Italian
border, where the rescued passengers were taken.
The cable cars, which carry four
passengers each, offer panoramic views of Mont Blanc, which straddles the
French-Italian border.
The incident comes five years after
around 40 people were stuck for nearly seven hours on the Grande-Motte cable
car in the southeastern French Alps after it broke down.
They were evacuated through trap
doors in the floor of the cars, using ropes to reach the ground 40 metres (130
feet) below.
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