A chairlift accident in a ski resort in northeastern Spain, located in the Pyrenees near the French border, left “numerous injured” on Saturday, local authorities announced. At least nine of these injured are in serious condition, according to media reports.
“We are talking about 30 to 35 injured, serious, very serious or less serious,” Miguel Ángel Clavero, director of emergency services in the Aragon region, where Astún station.
“Obviously, there was a problem with the pulley of one of the chairlifts, which led to a loss of tension in the cable and the fall of some chairlifts,” he explained. Regional President Jorge Azcón said for his part that the three most seriously injured people had been transferred to hospital, one of them, a woman, by helicopter. All the skiers who remained suspended in their chairlift were able to be rescued, he added.
“The chairlifts started jumping”
“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,” María Moreno, one of the victims, told public television.
-A young man, who witnessed the incident, told public television TVE that he had seen a cable from the chairlift mechanism jump. “Suddenly the chairlifts started bouncing and people were flying,” he said.
Five helicopters and around ten ambulances were mobilized to evacuate the injured to nearby hospitals, according to media reports. The president of the autonomous community of Aragon Jorge Azcón plans to visit the site.
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