“This resulted in a loss of cable tension and some chairlifts falling while others remained suspended,” he added.
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.
Five helicopters and around fifteen ambulances were mobilized while a field hospital was set up in the station.
-“People stole”
A young man, who witnessed the incident, told TVE that he saw a cable from the chairlift mechanism jump. “Suddenly the chairlifts started bouncing and people were flying,” he described.
“We suddenly heard a noise and we fell to the ground, in the chairlift. We bounced five times, up, down and our backs hurt and got hit but there were people who fell from the chairlifts “, said María Moreno, one of the victims, on 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.
In a message published on .
