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Pakistan: All 8 rescued from cable car hanging over ravine

Published August 22, 2023last updated August 22, 2023

Six children and two adults who had been trapped in a cable car for 15 hours were safely brought to the ground in a massive rescue operation involving the Pakistani military and local residents.

https://p.dw.com/p/4VQrE
eople watch as an army soldier slings down from a helicopter during a rescue mission to recover students stuck in a chairlift in Pashto village of mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
A soldier was suspended with a sling from a helicopter attempting to reach the cable carImage: AFP/Getty Images

Pakistani special forces and local residents rescued all the trapped children and adults from a broken cable car in Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday.

The six children and two adults had been stuck for 15 hours in a cable car, dangling 274 meters (900 feet) above ground. 

"The rescue operation has been completed. The two adults were the last to be rescued," said Bilal Faizi, an official with the Pakistan emergency service.

Part of rescue involved complex airborne operation

Pakistan's military said two children were plucked to safety via a helicopter — while the others were rescued after airborne operations had to be stopped due to darkness. 

Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said he had been monitoring events closely and expressed relief that all of those trapped had been brought to safety.

"Relieved to know that Alhamdolillah all the kids have been successfully and safely rescued. Great team work by the military, rescue departments, district administration as well as the local people," Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar wrote on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. 

Floodlights were put in place so a ground-based rescue could continue more than 12 hours after the cable car snagged, a security source told Reuters news agency. 

The risky helicopter rescue mission saw soldiers hanging from a sling trying to reach more trapped people. 

A still image of the cable car dangling hundreds of meters above the ground in the remote Battagram district
Social media footage from the scene showed the cable car dangling precariously in the airImage: UGC/AP/picture alliance

The incident happened as the children were on their way to school in a mountainous area in Battagram, about 124 miles (200 kilometers) north of Islamabad.

Nervous crowds watched the rescue unfold

The rescue mission had been complicated due to strong winds in the area, as well as concerns that the helicopter's rotor blades could further destabilize the lift.

Television footage showed one child being lifted off the cable car by a helicopter in a harness and then carried to the ground.

Headmaster Ali Asghar Khan told the AFP news agency that the children were teenage boys and students of his government high school Battangi Pashto.

"The parents are gathered at the site of the chairlift. What can they do? They are waiting for the rescue officials to get their children out. We are all worried," he added.

Many villagers in Pakistan's mountainous regions use chairlifts to travel shorter distances, but poorly maintained chairlifts cause injuries and fatalities each year.

In 2017, a cable car lift installed by local villagers in the popular mountain resort of Murree broke and fell into a ravine hundreds of feet deep, killing ten people.

kb,lo/sms (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)