Dozens of tourists are suspended in mid-air on cable cars over Mont Blanc and will not be rescued until morning because of darkness and poor weather.
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The incident comes five years after about 40 people were stuck for almost seven hours on the Grande-Motte cable auto in the south-eastern French Alps after it broke down.
The cables stopped working around 4 p.m. local time on Thursday because of tangling due to high winds.
“We were there nearly 10 hours in the cable auto”, Kathy Cook, an American tourist from MI, told The Associated Press after she was among the first group to be lowered to the ground. The cable vehicle carrying.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said four helicopters rescued 65 people before the efforts were suspended for the night because of rough flight conditions.
The cable vehicle connects Aiguille du Midi peak on the French side of the mountain and the Helbronner summit on the Italian border.
The cars were at an elevation of about 3,000 meters – or about 1.6 miles – an official at the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc, the company that owns and operates the cable cars, told ABC News.
Twelve people were rescued late Thursday night because their cable cars were hanging low enough that rescue workers could get to them safely, said Iaian Cleaver, an employee of Mont-Blanc Company, which owns the cable auto service.
“The extent of this rescue operation is simply unbelievable”, said Col. Frederic Labrunye, commander of the provincial gendarmerie group of Haute-Savoie. The cable auto restarted Friday morning, and the remaining tourists were rescued without the use of helicopters.
Another 12 people were evacuated during the night by rescuers using ropes.
The scenic cable-car journey – which links the Aiguille du Midi station in France to the Italian Punta Helbronner – is three miles long and usually takes 35 minutes.
Each cable vehicle holds just four passengers.
Several emergency workers stayed overnight with the stranded visitors to provide blankets, food, and water.
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Employees of the Mont-Blanc company were unable to fix them, according to its chief executive, Mathieu Dechavanne.
