At least 12 people died and two were injured when a cable car ‘doli’ installed by local villagers broke away from the wires and fell at Charra Pani in the Galiyat region of northern Pakistan on Thursday, Geo News reports citing rescue officials. The accident occurred some 30 kilometres north of Islamabad between Banwari and Charra Pani village in the tourist hill resort of Murree. “There was a strong wind which led to the cable car breaking and falling,” an eyewitness, Omair, was quoted as saying by Geo News. According to Rescue 1122 and police, the accident came near Panwari village of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa adjacent to the Murree town of Punjab on Thursday. Police said that the lift service set up on self-help basis would transport people from Murree to other areas crossing a nullah between two mountains in Hazara division. The two injured were identified as Haseeb, 23, from Manga and Adnan, 22, from Malpur, Islamabad, and they had been shifted to Holy Family hospital of Islamabad. The bodies of the victims have been handed over to their families, including a woman and a child, a rescue official told APP. The chances of survival of the three injured are slim, as the car fell to the ground from a height of 400 feet, the officials said. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed grief over the loss of precious lives in the chairlift incident at Charra Pani and directed concerned authorities for immediate medical aid to the injured, the report said. Later in the evening, the local people blocked the old Murree Road by placing the bodies on the road in protest and demanded action against the lift operator. Chairlift accidents are common in mountainous areas of the country, where the lifts are often used to cross rivers. Four people drowned when a chairlift broke in Diamer district of Gilgit-Baltistan in northern Pakistan last month.
At least twelve people die and two others are injured after a cable car falls nearly 500 feet into a ditch in Charra Pani, Galyat, Pakistan.