Harrowing footage shows passengers clinging for life in falling cable car
<p dir="ltr">Harrowing new footage has shown the moment 12 people were forced to hold on for dear life inside a falling cable car in Pakistan. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The video footage, captured by a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-66597447" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>BBC News</em></a> drone, shows the terrified passengers - six children and six adults - clinging on to parts of the cable car as they dangled stranded for 12 hours. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The group were travelling to a school in the cable car when a cable broke halfway through their journey high above the remote Allai valley in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.</p>
<p dir="ltr">They were more than 300 metres in the air when they became stranded. </p>
<p dir="ltr">A daring rescue operation took more than 12 hours to complete, with the use of a military helicopter and several zip wire experts.</p>
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<p dir="ltr">The children were rescued first, with the adults the last to be plucked free.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Some of the passengers told AFP that several times they lost hope in ever being rescued, and had considered leaping from the chairlift.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Some of the children were so frustrated and were considering to jump down, but the elder passengers gave us confidence,” 15-year-old Rizwan Ullah told AFP.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“When the cable car was twisting, we were terrified and we started reciting the Koran and gave confidence to each other not to jump down.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">Gul Faraz, a 25-year-old shopkeeper who was in the cable car, said they had started to lose hope that they would be rescued. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“During the whole process we thought we would die. There were some times when we thought we would not survive,” he said.</p>
<p dir="ltr">On Twitter, now known as X, Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kak said he was “relieved” after the safe rescue.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Great team work by the military, rescue departments, district administration as well as the local people.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">The owner of the cable car company in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was later arrested by police on multiple charges including negligence and endangering valuable lives.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: BBC News</em></p>
