Army’s SSG team
ISLAMABAD: A team of the Army’s Special Services Group (SSG) has started a rescue operation on a helicopter to rescue stranded school children and teachers in the chairlift. A commando of the SSG team is trying to access the chairlift.
Six school children and two teachers got stuck up mid-air after a chairlift cable broke down in Allai Tehsil in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Battagram district.
According to the National Disaster Management Authority, “A chairlift got stuck at a height of 900 feet midway due to a cable breakage in Battagram. Eight persons, including six children, are stranded.”
The chairlift stuck up in the air with students and teachers.
With NDMA’s coordination, PDMA deployed a Pakistan Army helicopter for the rescue mission.
Mansehra Deputy Inspector General of Police Tahir Ayub affirmed the incident. He said that the only viable solution is to rescue the stranded passengers using a helicopter.
Gulfaraz, who is among the stranded passengers, recounted that they had been stuck for over six hours on the chairlift. He revealed that a 16-year-old student with a heart condition had been unconscious for the past three hours. The teenager was en-route to the hospital via the chairlift.
Gulfaraz expressed, “We don’t even have drinking water in the chairlift.” He said that the first cable broke at 7 am, followed by the failure of another cable. He emphasized that the passengers have been awaiting assistance since early morning.
Gulfaraz confirmed the presence of eight people in the stranded chairlift, with six students, 10 to 16 years old.
Zafar Iqbal, a school teacher, explained that the students commute to school via the chairlift. He noted, “The chairlift is used to go from one place to another.
In this area, 150 children come to school through the chairlift.
It is a delicate rescue operation as the lift got stuck up about 900 feet above the surface in Battagram area this morning.
