A rare chairlift accident occurred on Saturday in Astún, a Spanish ski resort in the Pyrenees, located a few kilometers from the French border. In total, 30 skiers were injured, four of them seriously, according to the latest report from local authorities. Here’s what we know about it.
What happened?
Around 11:30 a.m. Saturday morning, in bright sunshine, while the slopes were very busy and the ski lifts full, “a problem with the pulley of one of the chairlifts” caused it to derail, explained Miguel Ángel Clavero, director emergency services of Aragon, on public television TVE.
“This resulted in a loss of cable tension and some chairlifts falling while others remained suspended,” he added.
What is the outcome?
The accident left a total of 30 injured, according to a latest report from the emergency services communicated on the social network X. Initially, rescuers had reported “30 to 35 injured”. Ten victims had to be treated in hospitals, four of whom were in serious condition. The other twenty were treated at the station by emergency services.
Arriving on site, the president of the Aragon region where the Astún station is located, Jorge Azcón, indicated that the most seriously injured victim, a woman, had to be transferred to a nearby hospital by helicopter. All the skiers who were left hanging in their chairlift were rescued, he added.
What do the witnesses describe?
A young skier told TVE that he had seen a cable from the chairlift mechanism jump. “Suddenly the chairlifts started bouncing and people were flying,” he described.
-“We suddenly heard a noise and fell to the ground in the chairlift. We bounced five times, up, down and our backs hurt and we took hits but there were people who fell from the chairlifts,” said María Moreno, one of the victims, on the public television. “We were very scared,” she added, saying she saw people injured on the slope below after being “directly hit by the chairlift” that had fallen.
“There was a seesaw effect and I saw 60 people fall,” said Borja Gimenez, Spanish MEP, present at the station.
Where is the investigation?
According to The Countrythe president of the regional executive, Jorge Azcón, indicated that the transport system had passed “the administrative controls” of the government of Aragon. “We will now have to study the specific causes of the accident.”
The court in Jaca, south of Astún, is investigating what happened.
