Australian woman dies after getting caught in Japan ski lift

An Australian woman died after her backpack caught on a ski lift on a Japanese mountain and she became suspended mid-air, police said on Monday.

The 22-year-old woman was preparing to get off the lift on Friday morning at Tsugaike Mountain Resort in Hakuba Valley, a popular ski destination in the central region of Nagano.

But a loose buckle from her backpack became caught in the lift chair, according to the lift operator, Tsugaike Gondola Lift.

The woman, who had secured the rucksack with a chest strap, was then dragged by the lift and became “suspended” in mid-air, a spokesman for Nagano regional police said on condition of anonymity.

“Because the chest strap was fastened, the backpack could not be removed from the [woman’s] body, and the guest was dragged along with the backpack after disembarking from the lift,” Tsugaike Gondola Lift’s president Tsuneo Kubo said in a statement.

“An attendant pressed the stop button to halt the lift. After rescue efforts, the guest was transported by ambulance to hospital,” he said.