A gondola, which was transporting workers, crashed at high speed on Tuesday upon arrival at the station in the resort of Val Thorens, in Savoie, causing eight injuries, including two serious ones, a few days before the scheduled reopening of the slopes.
“The cable car, which was transporting 16 people in charge of a construction site, hit the arrival station at Cime Caron which is located at approximately 3,200 meters above sea level,” indicated the prefect of Savoie François Ravier during a press briefing.
The accident occurred around 7:45 a.m. in “not very good” weather conditions, but which subsequently improved and its causes are currently unknown, he said.
The toll stands at “two seriously injured people with no life-threatening prognosis, who were evacuated to hospitals in Grenoble and Chambéry” and “six lightly injured”, he said, noting a previous report which reported six injured, two of whom were serious.
A person “very shocked was also taken care of,” he added.
A crisis management unit has been activated, as well as a departmental operational center and a numerous casualty plan (NOVI), for better coordination of relief efforts.
Some 120 people (firefighters, CRS Alpes, PGHM, Smu and slope services), as well as two helicopters and tracked vehicles were involved in the rescue operations. A medical-psychological emergency unit has also been set up in Orelle.
– Manual mode –
The Albertville public prosecutor's office was contacted and a team from the investigation and accident office is expected on site Wednesday morning “to analyze the causes of what happened”, added the prefect.
The dumpster “entered the summit station at a fairly high speed,” said Claude Jay, the mayor of Belleville, where Val Thorens is located.
According to Jérôme Grellet, general director of SETAM, the company which operates the cable cars, the station operated in “construction site” or “manual” mode, that is to say less secure than when it is open to the public and is then managed in an automated manner.
The cabin was operated by an “extremely experienced” pilot; “very shocked” by the accident, he was taken care of by the psychological unit, he said.
As for the weather conditions, they were “snowy” but “normal” for the high mountain season, he stressed.
– Highest in Europe –
The Savoyard resort of Val Thorens, the highest resort in Europe at 2,300 meters above sea level, is due to kick off the ski season on Saturday with that of Tignes. Most other resorts will stagger the opening of their slopes until the Christmas holidays.
Despite the accident, “we are going to open the station on Saturday,” the tourist office told AFP. Information concerning the opening perimeter (slopes and lifts) will be communicated soon on social networks.
The workers were heading to the construction site of a panoramic restaurant at the top of Cime Caron, which was due to open within a few weeks.
They used the Cime Caron cable car, the largest in Europe when it was built in 1982, and which was renovated in 2019.
Gondola accidents are not frequent but may have had serious consequences in the past.
In July 1999 in Saint-Etienne-en-Dévoluy (Hautes-Alpes), 20 people were killed when a cable car bucket fell.
In May 2021, the fall of a cable car cabin, probably due to a broken cable, killed 14 people in Stresa, a seaside resort on the shores of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.
