Battagram: Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Tuesday that the Pakistan Army’s Special Services Group (SSG) saved five of the eight people traped in the air after the cable of a gondola broke in Allai Tehsil in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Battagram district. The eight people were seven schoolchildren and a teacher.
The military’s media arm says that the ground action to get the three people still on the cable car is already under way. The rescue effort is being led by the general officer commanding (GOC) of SSG.
Two of the children saved by an army chopper before it got dark. But the rescue by helicopter had to stop because it was getting dark and there was a lot of wind.
The army chose to start a ground operation to find other ways to save the six people still stuck in the cable car.
To get the people back, a smaller cable car has been hung from the same wire. Also, food and water brought to those stuck by using the other cable car.
Also, the Pakistan Army has called in a local expert on crossing cables to help.
Shariq Riaz Khattak, a rescue worker at the scene, told Reuters that the open cable car got stuck half way across a ravine early in the morning and hanging by a single wire after the other one broke.
After the accident, the SSG men and helicopters from the Pakistan Army Aviation and the Pakistan Air Force helped save the people.
Khattak said that the rescue mission was hard because of the strong winds in the area and the fact that the rotor blades on the helicopter could make the lift even less stable.
