Pakistan: Eight people trapped in cable car cabin evacuated

rescue The six children and two adults had been trapped since Tuesday morning in a gondola stuck about 350 meters above sea level after one of the cables actuating broke down

A cable car in Rio de Janeiro (illustration). — Christophe Simon

The situation was almost hopeless but ended well in the end. The eight people stranded in a homemade cable car cabin suspended over a deep ravine, including six children, in a remote mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, been evacuated, said Tuesday the rescuers.

“The rescue operation is complete. The two adults were the last to to be recovered,” a Pakistani relief official, Bilal Faizi. The six children and two adults had been trapped since Tuesday morning in a stuck gondola about 350 meters above sea level after one of the cables operating it fell. down.

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“A tremendous teamwork by the army, the emergency services, the local authorities and the population,” Acting Prime Minister of Pakistan Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar on X (old Twitter).

The children used the cabin to get to the cabin. school, on the other side of a steep-sided valley crossed by a river in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Residents and relatives of those trapped were gathered on both sides of the deep ravine, located to several hours from any built-up area. Ali Asghar Khan, the principal of a public school in Battagram, explained to told AFP that the children involved were teenagers attending his school.

The cabin was blocked around 07:00 local time (02:00 GMT). The inhabitants, who managed the cable car themselves, had to using loudspeakers in mosques to alert officials on the other side; from the valley, in this area with no roads or bridges.

“The children were screaming in fear”

“Each time the helicopter lowered the rescuer closer to the cable car, the wind caused the rescuer to fall. by the helicopter made him shake and unbalance cabin, causing the children to scream in fear,” to the Geo News channel, Ghulamullah, president of the Allai Valley, site of the accident. “It’s a delicate operation that requires careful precision. The helicopter cannot get too close to the cable car because the airflow (caused by its blades) could cause the only chain supporting him,” he explained.

Army helicopters had first carried out reconnaissance operations at; proximity of the makeshift cable car and a soldier had been lowered in a harness to give the occupants food, water and medicine, the police said. to AFP Tanveer Ur Rehman, a local government official.

A video shows a person wearing a harness swinging under the helicopter, and being encouraged ;e by the crowd on the ground watching the relief operations. One of the children was the first to be rescued by a helicopter, according to the emergency services. In 2017, 10 people had found death in a similar accident near the capital Islamabad.