PESHAWAR/ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug 22 (Reuters) – Pakistan’s military has rescued two children among eight people trapped in a cable car slung over a high ravine, after a line snapped early Tuesday morning, in a high-risk operation complicating it. A storm is blowing. winds.
Officials said seven students and a teacher had been stuck in a cable car since 7 a.m. (0200 GMT) when they were heading to school in a remote mountainous area of Batagram, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Islamabad.
A spokesman for the rescue agency and a local official said two children have now been rescued. No details we are now available.
Sharq Riad Khattak, a rescue official at the site, told Reuters the cable car broke off halfway through a valley, about 274 meters (900 feet) above the ground, and was dangling with one cable after the other snapped.
[1/2]A view shows a cable car carrying stranded students through the air in Batagram, Pakistan, August 22, 2023, in this screenshot obtained from a social media video. Dean Sahar/via Reuters Acquisition of licensing rights
He said the rescue mission was complicated by high winds in the area and the fact that the helicopters’ rotating blades threatened to further destabilize the elevator.
“Our situation is very precarious, for God’s sake do something,” Galfaraz, a 20-year-old who was on the cable car, told local TV channel Geo News by phone, imploring the authorities to rescue them as soon as possible. He said the other students were between the ages of 10 and 15 and one of them passed out because of the heat and fear.
The rescue effort stunned the country, with Pakistanis crowding around televisions as local media showed footage of an emergency worker hanging from a helicopter cable near the small cabin, with those on board seen crowded together.
At the scene, crowds of villagers gather on a dizzying hillside as they anxiously watch the process.
There were seven students and one teacher on board the ship, said Muzaffar Khan, district administration official in Batagram, up from the previously reported six students and two teachers.
(Cover) By Asif Shahzad and Gibran Bahimam in Islamabad and Mushtaq Ali in Peshawar; Written by Gibran Bashimam. Editing by Sharon Singleton
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