BATTAGRAM/SHANGLA: It was a routine morning for students who were en route to school on a chairlift. But as fate would have it, they soon found themselves suspended in mid-air, thousands of feet above the ground after two of the three wires holding the chairlift snapped.

“As a result of the sudden jerk which came with a big bang, we piled on each other in the lopsided trolley, which was swaying due to strong gusts of wind,” the survivors told Dawn a day after they were rescued in a 14-hour-long operation. The passengers — including six students — held on to the rickety trolley’s hooks and supporting pipes — their lives dangling by a solitary steel wire.

As if the gusts were not enough to terrify them, the wind pressure on the trolley scared them to death. “All hope was lost; with every passing moment,” one of the survivors told Dawn. However, they got their hopes up again after an army chopper started hovering over the chairlift in an attempt to rescue them.

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Before the aerial operation was called off at night, 13-year-old Irfan was the only one rescued by a helicopter. Irfan said he did not see any other option but death before he was rescued. As he was being pulled out of the gondola, his parents and the rest of the family gathered at the site anxiously awaited his return.

Survivors, families recall how panic eventually gave way to relief; cable car owner, operator arrested

Another student, Niaz Mohammad, said army officials threw down a rope after rescuing Irfan. “I tied the rope around myself, but when I was pulled up, the rope got stuck with another rope on top of the cable car and they had to abort the attempt,” he said.

“After several attempts, when the helicopter flew back, I thought it was impossible to rescue us,” Attaullah, 16, told Dawn.

Gulfraz, 20, who was earlier mistakenly identified as a teacher, said that at nightfall, their hopes also faded. “When the helicopters left and darkness fell in front of our eyes, we started losing hope; if we could not be rescued in daylight then night was surely going to make things worse,” the survivor told Dawn.

Heroic operation

Enter Sahib Khan and his Koka and Engineering Company. They were called in to rescue the stranded passengers after the aerial operation did not get the job done.

The two private rescuers and their team from Bisham Seror, along with zipline operators from Naran, rescued the passengers in a daring operation, widely hailed by locals. Sahib Khan told Dawn at his residence that he was asking the local authorities to spearhead the efforts to save the students, but his requests were ignored at first.

Mr Khan claimed that the army had succeeded in rescuing one student, but after that it became impossible for them to overcome the situation, due to poor visibility.

After nightfall, he and his team were allowed to initiate the operation with ground support provided by the army, Rescue 1122, police and locals. He claimed that locals and the administration started to back him after he rescued the first person. Soon, other rescues followed, and eventually everyone was safely by midnight.

Niaz Mohammad was rescued at about 11pm. His teary-eyed family and mother hugged him and thanked God for the rescue. His father, Umer Zaib, said they had lost all hope of their son’s safe recovery, but rescue efforts thankfully bore fruit, ending their hours-long ordeal.

Voice of reason

As these teenagers were facing death, Sher Nawaz, who was on his way to Abbottabad, became a voice of reason. He said the chairlift was already ferrying students when he reached there and he got on board on the third trip.

“After the rope snapped, the students got scared and were screaming… I calmed them down and told them to be patient and have some hope… whatever fate has held in store for them will come to them,” he said as he related the scenes inside the trolley to Dawn.

“Some of the children were so frustrated, they were considering jumping down, but the elder passengers gave us confidence,” 15-year-old Rizwan Ullah told AFP.

Gulfaraz said they were prepared to die after the ropes snapped. “I don’t have words to explain what we faced inside the hanging cable car,” he said.

On the ground, the families’ terror was palpable.

13-year-old Irfan’s father said that shortly after his son left for school, he received word about the accident. “I reached there with a heavy heart, unaware of my son’s presence in the cable car… soon someone told me that my son is also stranded.”

“My wife and other kids rushed to the scene and their eyes remained glue to the cable car till the rescue operation came to an end in the night,” he said.

“Death is less painful than looking at your teenage son dangling thousands of feet above the ground, in a broken trolley,” Umraiz told Dawn.

Two arrested

Meanwhile, Allai police arrested cable car owner Malik Gulzarin and operator Ejaz after a loding a case over the incident.

The FIR said that a substandard rope had been used, with no alternatives available, which endangered the lives of the passengers. The report also mentioned that the chairlift operators had been instructed beforehand to provide a fitness certificate for the cable to a nearby police station, but they neglected to do so.

Separately, AC Allai Muhammad Jawad told Dawn that he formed an inspection committee to inspect such chairlifts.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2023