1 dead, 1 in critical condition after gondola crash at Quebec’s Mont-Tremblant resort

globalnews.ca:

One person is dead and another is in critical condition on Sunday after a mountain sightseeing gondola was struck at Quebec’s Mont-Tremblant ski resort, provincial police have confirmed.

Authorities say the incident happened just before noon after heavy construction equipment struck the moving gondola, throwing the two people down.

Officers say the two people were inside riding it either up or down the mountain at the time of the incident.

Emergency services were dispatched to the site and they were both rushed to hospital in critical condition. Officials confirmed one of their deaths later Sunday afternoon.

Provincial police say the surviving passenger was transferred to a Montreal-area hospital and their life remains in danger.

The Sureté du Québec (SQ) could not confirm any other details on the victims such as age or sex, nor the height of the gondola at the time it was struck.

Investigators will look into the circumstances around the incident and the safety measures at Mont-Tremblant, which is about a 1.5 hour drive north of Montreal into Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains.

The popular ski resort declined to comment, saying the situation was evolving. It cancelled the rest of Sunday’s blues music festival that was taking place.

Quebec’s Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx said in a statement that she was following the situation closely.

Last December, a gondola crashed at Mont Sainte-Anne, near Quebec City, but no one was injured.

— with files from The Canadian Press