Author: Ruptly TV
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Sixty passengers rescued from cable cars above Mont Blanc in the French Alps after a system failure on Thursday, gave accounts of their rescue in Courmayeur, across the Italian side of the border, Friday. Around 50 people remain trapped overnight in the French Alps hanging in cable cars at altitudes of over 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) after nightfall halted the rescue operation. Footage from the Italian side of the border shows passengers in cable cars being brought slowly to the foot of the hill. American tourist Kathy Cook stated "we were there almost ten hours in the cable car. The cables failed at about two thirty in the afternoon and it was just before midnight when they finally belay us out of the gondolas, which was really good, quite an experience." According to the Mont-Blanc Company, which runs the Vallee Blanche cable cars, the problem was cables crossing for unknown reasons, and was unable to be repaired. A spokesperson for the company said that they had distributed food, water, blankets and some means of communication to the passengers stuck at high altitude. The Vallee Blanche cable cars connect the French Aiguille du Midi with the Pointe Helbronner, which sits on the Italian border. SOT, Mario Mochet, Aosta Valley mountain rescue (Italian): "While the day was sunny, and not foggy, they could use helicopters. Then the fog arrived. They couldn't use helicopters anymore and they lowered people on to the glacier at the places they could. When the darkness arrived, they decided to stop the rescue operation till tomorrow morning." SOT, Maresciallo Delfino Viglione, Law enforcement agent (Italian): "The rescuers were brought up, and then lowered into the cabs. Then we organised some rescue teams on the glacier, to let the people be lowered from high to be recovered and carried to the shelter." Video ID: 20160909-006 Video on Demand: http://www.ruptly.tv Contact: cd@ruptly.tv Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ruptly Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Ruptly