Man killed and seven others injured as Turkey cable car pole collapses sending passengers plummeting

The tragedy happened just outside Antalya, Turkey, where a Tunektepe cabin fell suddenly and rescue teams continue to work to save 184 people left stranded on the mountain

A man has died and seven other people - including two children - are hurt after a pylon supporting cable cars collapsed in Turkey today.

Memiş Gümüş, 54, was killed in the tragedy, which happened just outside the Turkish resort city of Antalya. Six Turkish citizens and one Kyrgyz national were injured, authorities have said.

It is thought Memiş was from Turkey and had fallen into a rocky ravine after the connecting pole fell "for an undetermined reason". Two children are among the other seven injured in the horror at the Tunektepe cable car, popular with tourists.

Photographs in Turkish media showed the battered car swaying from dislodged cables on the side of the rocky mountain as medics tended the wounded. Helicopters equipped with night vision were called in to rescue 184 people left stranded in the cable car system's cabins after the horror unfolded, Antalya mayor Muhittin Böcek said in a statement.

He added: "Our specialised teams are here. God willing, we will rescue them all in a short time." Turkey's Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said five of the injured were ferried off the mountain by helicopter, and efforts have continued to remove the other two injured people.

The rescue operation has involved more than 160 first responders, including air crews from the Coast Guard and mountaineering teams from different parts of Turkey, the minister posted on social media site X. Around 110 emergency personnel had been sent to the site of the collapse, Yerlikaya said, with more specialist mountaineers being flown in from elsewhere in Turkey.

Video shared on X, which was known as Twitter, by Yerlikaya showed people being loaded onto helicopters in emergency stretchers as rescue operations continued into the night. He wrote: "May God have mercy on our citizen who lost his life, and I wish a speedy recovery to the injured."

A group of 10 opposition MPs were also headed to the scene to 'investigate the accident in detail,' said Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the opposition Republican People's Party.