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ACCIDENT

Police fear worst after car sinks in Swedish lake

A car drove off a bridge and sank 15 metres to the bottom of a lake in central Sweden on Monday afternoon, with an emergency diving team currently on the scene to investigate.

Published: 5 November 2012 14:39 CET

“We have divers investigating the lake as we have located the car on the bottom and it’s about 15 metres deep there. I have no information about whether there is anyone inside the car or not,” said Bo Eriksson of the Dalarna police to the Dagens Nyheter newspaper (DN).

The accident occurred around 12.30pm when a car crashed off a bridge passing over a stream that flows into the Ore Lake, in Furudal, central Sweden. Emergency services were quick to the scene.

It remains unknown why the car ended up in the lake, who owns the car, or how many people may be inside.

“We know the car has landed on its roof and that it is very sludgy on the bottom, so we don’t have the registration number, for example. There is most probably someone in the car, but against all odds, someone may have got out and left the scene,” Eriksson told the paper.

Jan Daniels of the local emergency services explained that the car has become stuck in the mud on the lakebed.

“It has sunk into the sludge so we can’t open the doors,” he told the TT news agency.

Daniels explained that witness reports suggest that the car floated for some time underneath the bridge before sinking.

Some four hours after the accident, the car was not yet salvaged. According to daily Aftonbladet, witnesses claim to have seen at least one person in it before the crash but divers have not been able to see anything in the murky waters.

The rescue operation was made more difficult by the fact that there are strong currents where the car sunk, and the divers say the car has been pulled some 50 metres from the crash site.

The road conditions on the bridge were reportedly good and police still have no idea what caused the car to go off the bridge.

TT/The Local/og

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Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021

Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The battle for custody of Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of the May accident that killed 14 people, has captured headlines since his maternal grandfather, Shmulik Peleg, brought him to Israel on a private jet last month.

The child lost his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents in the May 23 accident near the top of the Mottarone mountain in the northwestern Piedmont region, where the family was out on a Sunday excursion to the scenic spot served by the cable car.

The cable car’s pull cable snapped just before it reached destination. It then flew backwards, dislodging itself from a second, supporting cable, and crashed to the ground.

Investigations later revealed that emergency brakes that could have stopped the car on its supporting cable, avoiding the tragedy, had been deliberately deactivated to avoid delays following a technical malfunction.

Three individuals responsible for the cable car’s management were subsequently arrested.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP.

Peleg has insisted that he drove Eitan from Italy to Switzerland before jetting him back to Israel – instead of returning him paternal aunt Aya Biran, who lives in northern Italy – because Eitan’s late parents wanted him to be raised in the Jewish state.

But Peleg has become the subject kidnapping probe by Italian prosecutors and Israeli police questioned him over those allegations last month.

A statement Monday from the Tel Aviv court where Aya Biran had filed a complaint said judges “did not accept the grandfather’s claim that the aunt has no custody rights”.

It recognised an Italian judgement that established Biran as a legitimate guardian and said Peleg had “unlawfully” removed the boy from his aunt’s care.

The court “ordered the return of the minor to his usual place of residence in Italy”.

The court also found that “a connection” between the surviving members of the Italy- and Israel-based relatives was in Eitan’s “best interests”.

Peleg was also ordered to pay Biran’s legal fees, amounting to 70,000 shekels ($22,000).

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Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021.

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The case has stirred emotions in Israel, and throngs of journalists had surrounded the Tel Aviv court for hearings last month, with some pro-Peleg protesters insisting it was wrong to send a Jewish child out of Israel.

Before judges ordered the sides to stop talking to the media, Peleg told Israel’s Channel 12 in September that his grandson was “in the place where he is supposed to be, in his home, in Israel.”

Eitan and his parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg, had been living in Italy, where Amit Biran was studying medicine, together with their other child, Tom.

Eitan suffered severe chest and abdominal injuries and spent a week in intensive care after the May accident that occurred when a cable snapped on the aerial tram bringing weekend visitors to the top of the Piedmont region’s Mottarone mountain.

The accident was one of Italy’s worst in over two decades.

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