4 seriously injured in ski gondola crash in Austria

By Timo Kirez

GENEVA (AA) - A gondola crashed from a height of about 7 meters (about 23 feet) in a ski resort in the Austrian Alps on Tuesday morning, public broadcaster ORF reported.

All four occupants of the gondola were seriously injured in the crash, and one person's life is currently in danger from the accident in Hochoetz, in the western province of Tyrol, police told the broadcaster.

According to the police, a fallen tree is said to have caused the gondola to crash. The police stressed to ORF that they did not believe there was any technical defect.

The injured persons were taken to hospitals in the Austrian towns of Zams and Innsbruck. According to the daily Tiroler Tageszeitung, the injured are said to be a Danish family who were on vacation in the region.

After the seriously injured were rescued, three other injured people reported to the police from other gondolas, according to ORF. According to the police, the three people were apparently injured by the swinging of the suspension cable. The police gave no information on the severity of their injuries.

The operator of the gondolas, Bergbahnen Hochoetz, told the broadcaster about a dramatic accident in which apparently several trees had fallen into the cable car route.

"Experts need to clarify how this could have happened in the first place," Michaela Burger, a spokesperson for Bergbahnen Hochoetz, told ORF.