Battagram Cable Car Incident
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| Image obtained from HUM NEWS website |
Battagram—a district located in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa—a province in Pakistan witness a dreadful cable car incident on Tuesday early morning (August 22).
The Battagram Cable Car Incident
The incident happened when six high school students and two local shopkeepers booked a cable car ride to reach their destinations. It was a daily hustle for them to reach their places, until this time their fate didn’t help and they got stranded in a dangling cable car. The ride was going smoothly until two wires of cable car got snapped, risking the lives of individuals, dangling in the middle of a deep ravine surrounded by lofty mountains and rocky surface at a height of almost 900 feet. Soon an announcement was made in the local mosques about the situation. People gathered on both sides of ravine. Some locals moved forward to help but the management asked them to wait for military to intervene and help.
A local
cleric, Mufti Hassan Zaib said, “I reached there around midday and a lot of
other locals were waiting for rescue efforts to start. Some offered their
services, but the administration asked them to wait for the army helicopters to
arrive,” (Source: Al Jazeera).
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| Image obtained from Radio Pakistan Website |
Battagram rescue operation
Military helicopters later arrived, however despite making numerous efforts they couldn’t save more than one live. This 12 hour long aerial operation was then called off by the military after daylight faded. However, it was resumed at night by the locals. Two brothers namely Sahib Khan and Nasir Khan along with their colleagues were called by the local administration for help. Previously they asked the management to give them a chance, however management refused by citing that army helicopter will come and rescue.
According to them they were there at the spot for about 4-5 hours but by the evening army was able to save only one child using helicopter (Source: Al-Jazeera).
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| Image obtained from MM News Website |
Battagram local heros
The two brothers who belong to a nearby local town proved to be a saviour for the stranded individuals. They had been in the local business of cable car since long. It was not an easy task for them as the darkness, bad weather conditions and any minute mistake will not only cost their lives but the lives of those seven individuals too. As there were making the temporary dolly their videos and pictures went viral on social networking sites. Sahib—a local rescuer—who came first to rescue children at night said that as he advanced towards the dangling cable car, he could see the children being worn-out.
Sahib secured himself on his smaller cable car and pulled closer before reaching out to tie one of the children sitting in the hanging gondola(Source: Al-Jazeera).
The nervousness and fear among the crowd and sahib was anticipated as sahib feared that the load on the zip line might create an issue. However, things
went well by the grace of God and they were able to save the lives of all stranded
individuals.
After the completion of rescue operation, locals pleaded the government to make efforts in this regard by providing them secure means of transportation routes. As cable cars were their only means of transportation to travel shortly from one place to another.
