Four people died, one was seriously injured, and another was missing following a cable car crash Thursday near the southern Italian city of Naples, local rescue services and firefighters said. 

The accident took place at Monte Faito in the town of Castellammare di Stabia.

"The cabin at the top has crashed," said Umberto De Gregorio, chairman of the EAV public transport company which runs the cable car service.

The cable car, from which passengers get views of Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, had only reopened for the tourist season a week prior.

The trip up to the 1,100-meter-high (3,600-foot) mountain normally takes around 10 minutes.

What do we know about the crash?

Several Italian media reports said that one of the cables supporting the cabin had snapped while the vehicle was over a steep drop.

Rescue operations were being hampered by fog and high winds, Vincenzo De Luca, head of the Campania region around Naples, told RAI public television.

Another cable car had been using the same line at the time of the incident, but it was close to the town and all 16 passengers were safely rescued.

This is not the first time the Monte Faito cable car has seen a deadly accident. Eight years after the line opened in 1952, four people were killed when a cabin fell.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn