French Ski Lift Accident Kills 5, Over 80 Injured

TARBES, France — Five people were killed and more than 80 injured--41 seriously--Sunday when a string of ski lift chairs fell, pitching skiers more than 100 feet to the ground at a resort in the French Pyrenees, officials and rescue workers here said.

The lift at the resort of Luz-Ardiden, about 20 miles south of the pilgrimage center of Lourdes, was new and had been in use only three weeks. It had a capacity of 200 people, carried in 50 sets of four-chairs.

Most of the chairs fell but a few people were left stranded in their seats. Some dangled from the cable at the top of the slope for several hours.

Rescue workers said the number of casualties was large partly because there had been no new snow for about a week and many people fell onto bare rock. The chairlift was located on the resort’s upper slopes at an altitude of about 10,000 feet.

Bounced Like Puppets

“From the violence of the impact, some people bounced once like puppets and then fell heavily,” said a young man who witnessed the late afternoon accident.

The exact cause of the mishap was not known. Some witnesses said a cable jumped free from the pulley at the top of the slope. Others said that a support pylon may have collapsed.

A police officer interviewed by French television, and identified only as Capt. Mele, said the accident apparently was caused by the collapse of the upper part of one of the support pylons.

The French Transport Ministry said an inquiry into the accident would be started immediately.

Names Not Released

Five helicopters and 35 ambulances transported the injured to hospitals in Tarbes and Lourdes. The names and nationalities of the victims were not released.

The accident occurred in fine weather. The resort was crowded, as it was the end of a school vacation week in the Bordeaux region and the start of a school vacation in the Toulouse area. Most of the skiers in the Pyrenean resorts come from the two areas.

A director of the Luz-Ardiden facility, Daniel Poulou, said the chairlift was “the pride of the resort.”

“I don’t understand it,” he said. “These machines are dependable. Accidents are rare, statistics prove that. This is a tough break for us.”