A ride on a cable car is a fun thing to do until it turns into a nightmare. There have been quite a few tragedies — from Gulmarg in 2017 to the 1976 mishap in Italy. Here’s a look back at some of the most bone-chilling incidents
After over 45 harrowing hours, all the tourists who remained trapped mid-air in three cable cars in Jharkhand’s Deoghar district were rescued on Tuesday.
As per new reports, three people lost their lives after the cable cars were left dangling mid-air due to a malfunction of the ropeway, which resulted in the trolley cars colliding on Sunday.
Operations carried out by the Indian Air Force, Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and National Disaster Response Force saw the rescue of more than 40 people.
Chief Minister Hemant Soren has ordered a high-level probe into the cable cars tragedy at Trikut Hills. He also announced a compensation of Rs five lakh to the dependents of each dead in the ropeway accident.
The ropeway accident isn’t new. Such incidents have taken place in India and across the world. We take a look at the most bone-chilling cable car accidents.
Mishaps in India
Trolley accident in Chhattisgarh: A labourer died after a ropeway trolley he was travelling in crashed into a tower in Dongargarh area of Rajnandgaon district in February 2021. News reports said that the trolley got disbalanced while on the ropeway, resulting in it crashing into a tower.
Gulmarg accident: In June 2017, a tree uprooted due to strong winds, fell on the ropeway carrying the trolley and snapped it. The cable car carrying the victims plummeted to the ground from a great height.
Four members of a family and three other guides lost their lives, while another 150 people were stranded due to incident. The then Jammu and Kashmir government ordered a high-level inquiry into the accident and to look into why the cable cars were being operated during strong winds.
Visakhapatnam: Seven tourists were injured in February 2016 after a cable car they were travelling in, down the Kailasigiri Hill Park snapped from the hook and fell down. The cable car wasn’t very high up and that’s why the incident didn’t turn fatal.
Timber Trail incident: This incident goes down in history for being one of the most daring rescue operations ever seen. In October 1992, around 11 passengers had boarded the famous cable car from Timber Trail to Timber Heights in the Shivalik Hills in Himachal Pradesh’s Parwanoo area. They were about to dock when the cable car’s haulage cable broke and the car started sliding backwards.
Thanks to the courage and valour displayed by Indian Air Force personnel and a para commando that the 10 people were rescued and brought home safely.
Ropeway tragedies across the world
Italy cable car crash: In May last year, a cable car crashed to the ground in a northern Italy, killing 14 people including a nine-year-old child. The cable car was carrying 15 people on the 20-minute ride between the resort town of Stresa and the Mottarone Mountain in the Piedmont region when it plummeted into the woods near Lake Maggiore.
The accident was reportedly caused by a cable breaking shortly before the cabin arrived at the summit of Mottarone, located about 1,500 metres above sea level.
Czech accident: An operator of a cable car died in October 2021 when the cabin disengaged from its cable while descending a mountain in the north of the Czech Republic. The incident took place on the Jested Mountain.
Cavalese cable car disaster: Also known as the Cermis massacre, the incident took place on 3 February 1998 near the Italian town of Cavalese, a ski resort in the Dolomites. The tragedy, in which 20 people died, took place when a United States Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler aircraft cut a cable supporting a gondola of an aerial tramway.
Tbilisi aerial tramway accident: Twenty people lost their lives and 15 were injured during an aerial tramway accident on 1 June 1990, in Soviet Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi. The accident involved two gondolas moving on the ropeway route between Mount Mtatsminda and Rustaveli Avenue. One of the gondolas was moving down the mountain slope and nearing the lower supporting tower whereas the other one was on its way up. For a reason yet undetected, the hauling rope inside the upper gondola’s coupler broke, sending both the gondolas rolling down the slopes.
Cavalese crash: The 1998 incident was not the only time that tragedy struck here. In 1976, 43 people died in what remains the deadliest cable car accident in history. The mishap took place when a cable car was descending down Mount Cermis, and the steel supporting cable of the cable car broke, dropping the car 660 feet down the mountainside. The cable car skidded through a height of 330 ft before it finally rested on a grassy meadow. The top of the car was completely crushed when the three-ton overhead carriage assembly banged onto the roof of the car.
With inputs from agencies
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