MEDELLIN (Colombia), June 27 (NNN-XINHUA) — At least one person died and 20 others were injured Wednesday after a cable car plunged to the asphalt ground in Medellin in northwestern Colombia.
It was not immediately clear whether the person who died on the ground or in the cable car on Line K, part of the city’s over 14 km-long metro cable network that transports thousands of people every day along six routes.
Those injured included 10 passengers in the cable car that crashed onto “the lower part of the platform of the Popular Station,” Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez said on X.
Line K in northeastern Medellin will be suspended until the cause of the accident is identified, while the other lines will continue to operate normally, he said.
The accident was the first of its type since the metro cable system was put into service in 2004, said Tomas Elejalde, manager of the Medellin Metro, adding that the company will carry out a thorough investigation with the support of academia and specialists from other countries.
Medellin was the first city in the world to fully integrate a cable car system as a public transit option. — NNN-XINHUA