Great Western Coffee Shop

Reports state that a cable car fell from a considerable height onto a wooded hillside.
Early reports suggest 12 lives lost.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57219737 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57219737)

WARNING link contains images and video of the scene which some may consider inappropriate, but acceptable to quote IMHO as already in the public domain.

Edited to add that later reports state 13 lives have been lost.

Still later reports state 14 lives lost.

Reports as to the proximate cause of the accident are very varied.

Some reports suggest that the cable broke.
Others suggest that the cable remained intact, but that the cable car became detached from the cable.
Yet others state that the intact cable with cable car still attached, fell to the ground due to the failure of a support.

This morning, reports that it was not "just an accident". The operators disabled the emergency brake (clamp) on the car, so that when the tractor cable broke the car accelerated down the support cable towards the next tower. There (in an unknown order) it derailed and struck the tower, falling to the ground. The brake was disabled rather crudely with a piece of metal jammed into the jaws, to avoid doing maintenance work at a time when no money was coming in. Several arrests have been made.

That I find particularly shocking.
Things break, and accidents can never be entirely eliminated, but to deliberately disable a safety feature and leave it like that for some time is simply inexcusable, and arguably criminal.

A brief and "one trip only at reduced speed" disabling of the emergency brake might be acceptable to avoid leaving passengers stuck in mid air. But to carry on running like that is simply wrong.

This Canadian, who is a very experience engineer gives some good incite to the probable cause and effects.

Caution he inclined to use 'fruity industrial' language, so perhaps watch after the watershed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCB1xbkn1Ps

I've seen the CCTV footage that RAI broadcast. Shocking. And more so knowing that this wasn't an unforeseeable accident, but one caused by deliberate negligence.