After long hours of breath-taking, the caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan, Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar, announced on the X social networking platform, formerly Twitter, that all the children who were on board a cable car that had broken down had been rescued.
7 students and their teacher have been trapped in a cable car hanging at a great height in the air above a deep valley in Pakistan since the early hours of the morning, after one of the two wires carrying it was cut off.
Tough rescue
The authorities succeeded in rescuing them after a “extremely dangerous” operation that was hampered by strong winds.
Officials previously reported that the students had been stuck in the cable car since 7 am (0200 GMT) when they were heading to school in a remote mountainous area of Batagram, about 200 kilometers north of Islamabad.
Muzaffar Khan, an administrative official in Batagram district, pointed out that there are seven students and one teacher on board the vehicle, contrary to what was previously reported that there were six students and two teachers.
While the Pakistan National Authority for Disaster Management said in a statement that the vehicle broke down before the authorities sent two military helicopters to carry out a rescue operation after attempts to fix the malfunction failed.
Single wire hanging
Sharq Riyadh Khatak, a rescue official at the site, told Reuters that the cable car cable was cut off in the middle of the way over the valley, at an altitude of about 274 meters, and it became suspended by one wire after the other was cut off. He added that the rescue mission was complicated by the strong winds in the area and because the propeller shafts of the two planes threatened to further destabilize the vehicle.
However, the Pakistani army returned and later posted on its Twitter account a video clip showing the rescue of 4 children from the stranded. In the video, a helicopter is seen transporting the children through a hanging rope.
It is noteworthy that two military planes were flying near the cable car, without being able to rescue the children hours ago.
