Three individuals were successfully rescued on Tuesday after being stranded in a chairlift above Pakistan’s northwestern Chitral river when its wire snapped, rescue officials said, a week after a similar cable car malfunction in the country’s Battagram district led to a 16-hour rescue effort that grabbed global attention.
Rescue teams were immediately dispatched to the location of the incident when they received a call, according to officials. It took 45 minutes to complete the rescue mission.
“Three people were stuck in the chairlift while they were crossing a river in the Kuragh area of Upper Chitral,” Suhail Ahmad, a Rescue 1122 official in Chitral, told Arab News over the phone.
“Seven members from Rescue 1122 took part in the rescue operation… all three people stuck in the chairlift were rescued safely.”
The individuals, belonging to the Gahlasht village, were trying to reach the regional headquarters of Buni by crossing the Chitral river via cable car, Ahmad said.
“The chairlift came to a standstill midway as its cable snapped, so our rescue officials employed the ‘repelling technique’ to secure the victims,” explained Bilal Faize, a spokesperson for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Rescue 1122 service.
He said the technique required the rescuers to lower themselves using a rappel device, ultimately attaching a rope to the cable car and guiding it to safety.
The incident unfolded exactly a week after another cable car carrying a group of seven schoolboys and an adult in the Battagram district was left hanging hundreds of meters above the ground due to a cable malfunction. The harrowing incident led to a 16-hour-long rescue operation that brought together civilians, rescue teams and armed forces officials in a comprehensive effort.
Make-shift cable cars that carry passengers are common across the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region and are vital in connecting villages and towns in areas without roads.
In 2017, 10 people were killed when a chairlift cable broke, plunging passengers into a ravine in a mountain hamlet near the capital Islamabad.
