Pakistan: All 8 trapped passengers were rescued during a cable car rescue in Battagram

Anwaarul Haq Kakar, the temporary prime minister of Pakistan, said on Tuesday that all eight individuals trapped aboard a cable car hanging hundreds of meters over a dangerous ravine in a remote area of northwest Pakistan had been safely rescued.

When one of the ropes split earlier in the day as the passengers were crossing a river canyon in the Battagram area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, six children and two adults got stranded. Around 8 am, in the Allai tehsil of the Battagram district, the event took place while the kids were on their way to school.

I’m relieved that everyone was successfully and securely rescued. Prime Minister Kakar wrote on X, “Great teamwork by the military, rescue departments, district administration, as well as the locals.” Rescue 1122 sent a statement in which it stated that the mission had ended successfully, according to Dawn media.

Since there were no roads or bridges in the region, Assistant Commissioner (AC) Jawad Hussain said that residents privately operated the cable car for transit over rivers. The Jhangri river and the towering mountains on either side of it, as well as the cable car, hung precariously in the air for hours.

The morning rescue effort to free the trapped passengers got under way, but it took until late in the evening to free the first two kids. After many failed efforts and inclement weather, they were rescued by the military soon before dusk as part of an operation involving four helicopters.

When night fell, state station PTV News stated that rescue attempts using alternate methods were still continuing on but that the airborne operation had been canceled owing to night and weather circumstances. Rescuers subsequently switched from an aerial attempt to a perilous operation that required utilizing one cable that was still intact to approach the automobile with the chairlift since helicopters could not fly after nightfall.

Two helicopters from the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Air Force had already arrived at the scene to conduct a rescue effort. There were two efforts to go in the direction of the chairlift. Then one of the helicopters departed. The local government and Rescue 1122 teams were on the scene, but Assistant Commissioner Jawad Hussain stated that owing to the height and the mountainous terrain, rescue personnel were unable to conduct a relief operation.

The youngsters would scream in fright as the helicopter dropped the rescuer closer to the chairlift because the wind from the helicopter would shake and unbalance the chairlift, according to Ghulamullah, chairman of the Allai Valley region, who had previously spoken to Geo News. Twenty-year-old Gulfaraz, who was riding the chairlift, informed Geo News over the phone that there was no drinking water available.

The national and provincial crisis management agencies had been tasked with using all of the available resources, and Prime Minister Kakar had ordered officials to rescue everyone trapped in the chairlift. He gave orders to guarantee that cable cars in the steep regions would be operated safely.

“The chairlift accident in Battagram, KP is really alarming,” he wrote on X. “I’m keeping a careful eye on and following the rescue operations in Batgram, KP. I’m glad to see that things are moving forward, and because to the work of our military men, Air Force, rescue teams, district administration, and others, kids locked in the chairlift have begun safely descending to the ground. Insha Allah, I’ll continue keeping a careful eye on things till the rescue effort is through,” he said in a another post.

Zafar Iqbal, a local schoolteacher, told the Dawn newspaper that since there aren’t any roads in the region, at least 150 pupils travel in danger each day to go to school by cable car.