People 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, on August 22, 2023.
- Four out of eight people trapped in a cable
car over a high ravine were rescued by Pakistan’s military. - The
cable car became stranded halfway across a ravine, about 275 metres above
ground, and was dangling by a single cable. - The
rescue mission has been complicated due to gusty winds in the area.
Pakistan’s
military on Tuesday rescued four children out of eight people trapped in a
cable car dangling all day over a high ravine in a high-risk operation
complicated by gusty winds and fading light.
Seven
children and one teacher became stuck in the cable car when a line snapped at
around 07:00 (02:00 GMT) as they were travelling to school in a remote
mountainous area in Battagram, about 200 km north of Islamabad, officials said.
Four
children had been rescued, one by one, district official Shah Fahad said. A
rescue agency spokesperson and a district official said told Reuters earlier
that two children had been pulled out.
Television
footage showed one child being lifted off the cable car by a helicopter in a
harness and then carried to the ground.
The
cable car became stranded halfway across a ravine, about 275 metres above
ground, and was dangling by a single cable after the other snapped, Shariq Riaz
Khattak a rescue official at the site, told Reuters.
The
rescue mission has been complicated due to gusty winds in the area and the fact
the helicopters’ rotor blades risk further destabilising the lift, he said. It
was also getting dark.
“Our
situation is precarious, for god’s sake, do something,” Gulfaraz, a
20-year-old on the cable car, told local television channel Geo News over the
phone, appealing to authorities to rescue them as soon as possible. He said the
children were aged between 10 and 15 and one had fainted due to heat and fear.
The
rescue effort has transfixed the country, with Pakistanis crowded around
television sets, as local media showed footage of an emergency worker dangling
from a helicopter cable close to the small cabin, with those onboard cramped
together.
Crowds
of villagers gathered on the hillside anxiously watching the operation.
Muzaffar
Khan, a district administration official in Battagram, said there were seven
students and one teacher aboard, updating from the earlier reported six
students and two teachers.
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