Cable Car Drops Passengers Onto Mountain in Turkey, Killing One

A cable car ferrying passengers in a mountainous area of southern Turkey broke apart after colliding with part of the metal structure supporting it on Friday, sending its eight terrified occupants plummeting to the rocky hillside below.

One passenger was killed, seven were injured and nearly 200 more were trapped in other cabins in midair, some for as long as 19 hours, as rescuers worked to free them from the crippled line.

Helicopters, cranes and hundreds of rescuers were deployed to the area to evacuate a total of 184 people, including children, local residents and foreign tourists who were stranded in cabins, some of them dozens of meters above the ground in the Sarisu area of Antalya Province, officials said.

The cable cars normally transport passengers to a point high up the steep, tree-covered mountain that offers views of sweeping views of the hills, the city of Antalya and the Mediterranean Sea. Friday may have been a particularly busy evening for tourism there; the weekend began as Muslims celebrated Eid, the multiday holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.

Around 6 p.m. local time on Friday, a pole that was part of the system broke off and struck one of the cabins, smashing the cabin and dropping its eight passengers to the rocky ground when the floor they were standing on suddenly fell away, the Demiroren news agency reported.

One passenger, a 54-year-old man, died at the scene and the other seven were injured, Demiroren said. Three more people were wounded during the rescue operation, Mayor Muhittin Bocek of Antalya told reporters at the scene.