Cable Car Tower Collapses - gemmafan's Blog | MayContainNuts.com Blog

Cable car tower collapses at Canadian ski resort   Photograph: Bonny Makarewicz/EPA

Rescue crews evacuate the cable car after a tower collasped near the bottom of the ski lift in Whistler, Canada, 16 December 2008 Cable cars at a Canadian ski resort plunged almost to the ground, injuring a dozen people, when a support tower partly collapsed.

At least 50 people were trapped for more than three hours yesterday afternoon at Whistler resort in British Columbia, which is to co-host the 2010 Winter Olympics. A series of gondolas that run about 10 metres (33ft) above the ground near the start of the lift run dropped suddenly as the cable they hang from sagged.

Several cars were left dangling just above the ground while one hit a bus shelter. Twelve people were treated for injuries including concussion, although none were kept in hospital.

One passenger, Graeme Bell, said he had minor concussion and a broken finger. "I just heard a big metal bending noise and all of a sudden our cabin was plummeting to the ground," he told a vancouver newspaper. "Our cabin bounced off the ground, our window popped out upon impact, the bench collapsed, my finger got broken and my head was banged."

His cable car fell to about a metre above the ground. Bell, 26, and his fellow passengers jumped out "and then we started swearing", he told the paper.

A total of 53 people were trapped inside the 30 stationary cable cars. Rescue workers had to bring in a crane to support the leaning tower before removing people from the three cars deemed most in danger. None of the cars fell off the cable.

A spokeswoman for the company that built the cable car told the Vancouver Sun that it had been operating without incident since 1994 and was tested by provincial safety officials before every ski season.

Comments (1)

1. smiffy80four (39 months ago)

   Wow, I never heard about that... guess they kept it pretty quiet for obvious reasons!
   
   That would have really sucked though.
   
   Glad no one was seriously hurt.
   
   If it had been one of the standing ones it would have probably been a lot worse