A five-year-old boy remains in intensive care with multiple broken bones after becoming the sole survivor of a cable car crash which killed fourteen people on Sunday in northern Italy.
The fatalities included the boy's parents, his younger brother, and two of his great-grandparents.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry identified the survivor as Eitan Biran. He is currently in Turin's Regina Margherita children's hospital "with serious head and leg injuries", reported the BBC.
Another child involved in the crash was taken to the hospital but later died.
The survivor's parents were Amit Biran, 30, and Tal Peleg-Biran, 26, an Israeli-born couple who lived in Lombardy. His younger brother was named Tom and was only two years old.
His great-grandparents were visiting the family from Tel Aviv, while local media have identified all the other victims as residents of Italy, reported the Associated Press (AP).
The cable car scaled Mottarone, a 1400m-high mountain in the region of Piedmont. When the lead cable snapped, the car fell 20m before colliding with the side of the mountain.
The lift had only recently been re-opened following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.
An investigation by Italian officials is now underway. The lead prosecutor, Olimpia Bossi, told the AP: “The brakes of the security system didn’t work. Otherwise the cabin would have stopped.”
“Why that happened is naturally under investigation.”
