HP: Cable car with 11 onboard gets stuck mid-air in Parwanoo, all rescued

Eleven people, including five women, were stranded for hours after a cable car was stuck mid-air at Parwanoo Timber Trail in Himachal Pradeshs Solan district, officials said on Monday.All of them were rescued after a six-hour-long operation, they said.Ten of the rescued tourists are from Delhi while one is from Haryana, police said in a statement.

Eleven people, including five women, were stranded for hours after a cable car was stuck mid-air at Parwanoo Timber Trail in Himachal Pradesh's Solan district, officials said on Monday.

All of them were rescued after a six-hour-long operation, they said.

Ten of the rescued tourists are from Delhi while one is from Haryana, police said in a statement. A team from National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) also reached the spot, the officials said, adding the incident was reported around 11 am.

Parwanoo Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Pranav Chauhan told PTI that the cable car carrying the eleven tourists had stuck at a height of around 200-250 feet near a mountain peak. ''That is why much difficulty was not faced in rescuing the passengers by sending them to the ground, one at a time, after tying a rope around each of them. A rescue cable car was deployed to get the people out,” he added. The DSP said that the maximum height of the 1.8km ropeway is about 1,000 metres. Popularly known as timber trail, the Parwanoo ropeway is situated about 35 km from Chandigarh city on Chandigarh-Shimla road and it takes about eight minutes one way for the cable car to reach from one hill to the another. Meanwhile, an FIR was registered against the owner of the cable car run by Timber Trail Resorts at Parwanoo police station under sections 287 and 336 of Indian Penal Code on the basis of a statement by Anand Goyal, one of the rescued tourists, the officials said. Chauhan said if required, more sections from other Acts might also be included in the FIR. Giving his statement under Section 154 of CrPC to the police, Goyal said that this incident has taken place due to the carelessness of hotel management. The investigation of this case is being carried out by Solan additional superintendent of police, the officials said. The complainant informed Parwanoo DSP over phone that he, along with his family members, has been stranded in mid-air on ropeway/trolley at Timber Trail Resorts, Parwanoo, police said, adding that a team from Parwanoo police station went to the spot to initiate rescue operation.

Air Force Station at Kasauli was requested to provide necessary help and an NDRF team stationed at Panchkula was also called to the spot, police said.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, who reached the spot after getting information about the incident, talked to the rescued tourists. Later, speaking to the media, Thakur said Union Home Minister Amit Shah talked to him twice over phone and sent an NDRF team to the spot, while an air force helicopter was also put on standby. To a query, the CM said that the incident would be probed to determine if there was any negligence on the part of the private company running the timber trail. Earlier, State Disaster Management Director Sudesh Mokhta said eight people were stuck in the timber trail due to some technical snag in the cable car. The 10 rescued tourists who are from Delhi include Anand Goyal (52), Kanika Garg (51), Anju Garg (47), Dimple Goyal (51), Sheetal Gupta (52), Rita Goyal (54), Rajesh Garg (50), Manoj Goyal (57), Gopal Gupta (55), and Parveen Garg (49). The Haryana tourist was identified as Chirag (28) from Jind. A tourist from Punjab, Anupam Bhagria, said that the safety of tourists using the timber trails should be ensured. Accountability should be fixed in such incidents, otherwise timber trails should be closed, she added.

Meanwhile, a video clip apparently taken by one of the trapped tourists surfaced on social media in which an aged tourist can be heard saying that he is a diabetes and kidney patient and cannot be rescued by a rope. In the video, some other people were also saying that they were not fit to be taken out like this. A similar incident at the Timber Trail had occurred 20 years ago in which one person was killed. In October 1992, 10 of the 11 stuck people had been rescued in an operation by the Army and Air Force, while the cable car operator had died. Nearly two months ago, 15 tourists were trapped mid-air on a ropeway at Trikut hills in Jharkhand's Deoghar district for around 40 hours. Twelve of them were rescued by Indian Air Force helicopters, while three people had died in the incident that took place on April 11.