Six children and two adults have been trapped all day in a cable car dangling 274 metres (900 feet) above a deep valley in Pakistan’s Battagram, a remote and mountainous area around 200 km north of Islamabad.
The children – between 10 and 15 years of age – were using the cable car to get to school when one cable broke, leaving the gondola tilting dangerously and dangling mid-air. However, Syed Hammad Haider, a senior official from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province – has claimed the cable car is hanging between 1,000 to 1,200 feet above the ground.
Either way, authorities are battling fear, fatigue and fading light in an ‘extremely dangerous and risky’ rescue op hampered by high winds, and the fate of all eight rests on the tensile strength of the second of two cables holding the gondola aloft after the first snapped, leading to the crisis.
“For God’s sake help us,” Gulfraz, one of the adults, told Pak TV channel Geo News by phone. He confirmed eight people were on board. “It has been nearly five hours since we were stuck… the situation is so bad one man has fainted. A helicopter arrived… left without any operation.”
Rescue attempts so far
Two Pakistan Army helicopters were swiftly dispatched to lead the rescue op after attempts to fix the fault were declared unsuccessful. However, the attempt to airlift the cable car’s occupants out of danger were suspended amid concerns the aircraft’s rotor blades could destabilise the cable car.
This was after two rescue attempts were launched and aborted; a third is unlikely at this time, with both helicopters now hovering a safe distance away as authorities work on a new rescue plan.
Those on board have been given food, water and medicine after an airman was lowered by harness, Tanveer Ur Rehman, a local government official, told news agency AFP.
“This is a delicate operation that demands meticulous accuracy. The helicopter cannot approach closely as its downwash (air pressure) might snap the sole chain supporting it,” he explained.
“Every time the helicopter lowered the rescuer closer, the wind from the helicopter would shake and dis-balance the chairlift making the children scream in fear,” a government official told Geo News.
Terrified locals
Abid Ur Rehman, a teacher from another school in the area, said around 500 people had gathered to watch the rescue. “Parents and women are crying for the safety of their children,” he told AFP.
Ali Asghar Khan, the headmaster of the school the trapped children attend, told AFP the school is located in a mountainous area with no safe crossings. “So it’s common to use the chairlift.”
Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar expressed concern in a post on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “I have also directed the authorities to conduct safety inspections of all such private chair lifts and ensure that they are safe to operate and use,” he said.
Cable cars that carry passengers and sometimes cars are common across the northern areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Gilgit-Baltistan, and are vital in connecting villages and towns.
In 2017, 10 people were killed when a chairlift cable broke, sending passengers plunging into a ravine in a mountain hamlet near capital Islamabad.
With input from agencies