PICTURED: WOMAN WHO FELL TO HER DEATH FROM A CABLE CAR IN ITALIAN ALPS

• Margherita Lega had been hiking with her husband Rocco Meloni and two kids

The first pictures have emerged of a mother who plunged 500ft to her death from a cable car after she was dragged away by the mountain lift system in front of her horrified family.

Teacher Margherita Lega, 41, had been hiking with her husband Rocco Meloni, and their two young children aged six and nine, during a holiday when the freak tragedy happened yesterday morning.

She had been loading luggage onto the teleferica machine - a small cable car used to transport baggage and objects rather than people - when a buckle on her backpack was snagged by the contraption and it suddenly switched on.

Frantically clinging on, Margherita was carried her more than 50 yards over a cliff edge, before she slipped off and plunged to her death at Calasca Castiglione near Turin, northeast Italy.

Prosecutors are now investigating the death as manslaughter, with a local man who was operating the luggage cableway when Ms Lega was using it reportedly being questioned by police.

At the time of Ms Lega's death, she and her family had been trying to reach a cabin in a 'regenerative ecovillage' on the Drocala mountain.

Ms Lega's children, who are believed to have witnessed their mother's harrowing death, were being looked after yesterday while her husband was taken to the local police station.

The mayor of nearby Calasca Castiglione, Silvia Tipaldi, said she was 'shocked' by the tragic death and shared her condolences with the family.

She added: 'We are waiting for the magistrate's checks on the plant to have more information on what unfortunately turned out to be a tragedy'.

Mayor Tipaldi said that 'the cableway paperwork was regularly filed with the Municipality' and that the authorities currently believe 'the tragedy was accidental.'

The hamlet of Drocala, which they had been trying to reach, only has a few private homes, with authorities saying they do not know if the victim's family had friends or relatives in the area or whether they were visiting someone there.

The cableway, which connects the Olino hamlet with the Drocala alpine pasture, is said to travel a distance of around 1,300ft (400m) and crosses a steep ravine.

It is usually operated by two people, at two points, above and below. The starting point cannot be seen from where the controls are at the top, according to reports.

More than 100 emergency personnel including firefighters, police and mountain rescue teams rushed to the scene.

With the help of a helicopter and climbers on the ground, they eventually located the Ms Lega's body in the valley.

Alpine rescue crewmembers recovered her body by winching themselves down from the helicopter and pulling the mother out of the ravine by air.

Prosecutors reportedly sealed off the teleferica as they look into whether all the correct safety measures were observed at the site.

The system is reported to have restarted suddenly, with the reason as to why it began pulling uphill being investigated.

The incident took place in the Anzasca Valley, a popular hiking area in the Piedmont northeast of Turin.

Tributes have poured in for Ms Lega, who is said to have been from Fiavè, a small town in Italy's northeastern Trento region, a four hour drive from Calasca Castiglione.

A friend, who wished to remain anonymous, told Il Quotidiano: 'She was a wonderful girl. 

'Always full of energy, the classic good girl,' adding that she was someone who was 'consistent with her ideals, with her life choices. A cultured woman'. 

A neighbour told the Corriere Alto Adige newspaper of the family: 'They were always travelling and were rarely here, always off here and there, it made us want to go travelling.

'They are a lovely family though and when we did see them they were always talking... [their] bikes are still propped against the wall in the communal courtyard.'

Another local said Ms Lega 'enjoyed growing her own vegetables and had an allotment with her husband,' adding that the kind-hearted couple shared everything they grew with local charities.

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2024-07-05T11:01:19Z dg43tfdfdgfd