All passengers brought to safety from Pak cable car
Thursday, 24 August 2023
LONDON, Aug 23 (BBC): One of the children stuck in a cable car above a ravine in Pakistan has described the ordeal, saying he thought "it was my last day and it was over for me".
"When the chairlift was halfway there, its rope broke. It was dangling and I was terrified," Attaullah Shah said. All eight people were eventually saved in an operation lasting over 12 hours.
A military chopper rescued one trapped child, while zip line experts recovered the rest of the group after dark. The group had been on their way to school when two of the car's cables snapped.
It was left hanging precariously 274m (900ft) above the ground and in high winds. "It was like doomsday for the area," said Fahim Udin Shah, the uncle of one of the rescued children.
"Everyone rushed out of their homes [to observe the operation]. A kid from almost every household was here," he added. Pakistan's army said the rescue mission had been "extremely difficult and dangerous".