Italy’s worst cable car disaster in more than 20 years has left people questioning what went wrong

Two Sundays before fourteen people fell to their deaths in Italy’s worst cable car disaster in more than 20 years, hundreds of marathon runners had raced up a mountain path behind Lake Maggiore. After reaching the summit of Monte Mottarone, they made their way back down in cable cars, departing every 20 minutes for the return to the lakeside resort of Stresa below.

“It’s difficult to believe that just two weeks ago so many people – maybe 800 – ran up the mountain and all came down safely by cable car,” said Rinaldo Piraccini, who was sitting outside L’Idrovolante, a bar and restaurant next to the entrance of the funicular, with his friend Daniele Sacchi on Monday afternoon.

On 5 May 1821, the paper reported on revolutions in Naples and Sardinia as well as events in Moldavia, Odessa and Portugal

The hopes which were entertained, at the period when our prospectus was issued, with respect to the revolutions at Naples, and in Piedmont, have since been fatally disappointed, and the termination of the contest almost with a struggle on the part of the Neapolitans, of the Piedmontese, has afforded to the enemies of popular rights, opportunity for a sneer. It was not to be supposed that the forces of Naples, or of Piedmont, separated, or even united could cope with the armies of Austria, particularly when supported, as in the case of their receiving even a momentary check they would have been, and as in point of fact they still appear likely to, by those of Russia.

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