Trapped skiers rescued from cable cars in Italian Alps Published duration 25 December 2016

media caption Skiers were stuck on the cable cars 30 metres in the air

More than 150 skiers have been rescued after hours trapped in cable cars in the Italian Alps, officials say.

The 153 skiers were stuck on the slopes of the Cervinia resort for seven hours on Saturday after wires carrying the cabins became tangled in strong winds.

The cars stopped at an altitude of more than 2,500m (8,366ft), and the rescue ended just before midnight.

No cases of hypothermia were reported during the incident in the Aosta Valley, near the French border.

"Luckily the wind wasn't too cold... everything is under control," Adriano Favre, the head of the local rescue teams, was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

Television pictures of the rescue showed the skiers using wires to slide down the cable to the ground.

They were eventually freed after rescuers managed to restart the cabins by relaxing the tension of tangled cables.

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