Around 200 holiday skiers in the Italian Dolomites have been winched to safety after getting stranded in cable car cabins buffeted by 130km/h winds.
The Ciampinoi cable car in the popular Val Gardena resort ground to a halt on Thursday after a huge tree was blown over onto the cable, local officials said.
Amid fears the cable could snap at any moment, mountain rescue experts and firefighters were lowered on to the cabins from helicopters.
They then quickly evacuated the terrified skiers from around 20 different cabins using ropes and succeeded in getting everyone off without any serious injuries.
The drama came as stormy weather caused havoc across much of northern Italy and claimed at least two lives.
A woman was crushed by a falling tree in Urbino in the Emilia Romagna region while a man died behind the wheel of his car when it was hit by a rockfall near Lucca in Tuscany.
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