Eight people who got trapped in a disabled cable car dangling high above a valley in Pakistan returned safely to the ground Tuesday after military commandos staged a daring and delicate rescue using helicopters and a makeshift chairlift.
Eight people who got trapped in a disabled cable car dangling high above a valley in Pakistan returned safely to the ground Tuesday after military commandos staged a daring and delicate rescue using helicopters and a makeshift chairlift.
The daylong ordeal began when six children got into the gondola for a trip to school. Two adults were with them. But then a cable snapped, bringing the car to a halt and trapping the group in midair. They were helpless, suspended hundreds of meters (feet) above a remote, mountainous landscape.
Six hours passed before a helicopter arrived. When the rescues began at last, at least one child who was plucked out of the car could be seen in video footage hanging at the end of a cable as he was winched up to the aircraft.
But the choppers also added an element of danger. The air currents churned up by the whirling blades risked weakening the only cable holding the car aloft and preventing it from crashing to the bottom of the river canyon in the Battagram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
