Owner and operator of stranded Pakistan chairlift arrested – police

In this image taken from video, a cable car carrying six children and two adults dangles hundreds of meters above the ground in the remote Battagram district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan on August 22, 2023. (AP)

• Rescuers on Tuesday evening saved all eight people on board
• They spent over 15 hours swaying precariously after a cable snapped

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: The owner and operator of a chairlift that was stranded in high winds above a ravine with children on board in Pakistan have been arrested, a local police officer said on Wednesday.
Mohammad Sheraz Khan, an officer at a district police station in Pakistan’s northwest, told Reuters the two men had been detained after the children were rescued, but did not give details of the charges.
Rescuers on Tuesday evening saved all eight people on board after they spent more than 15 hours swaying precariously in the chairlift after one of its cables snapped.
"It was a unique operation that required lots of skill," the military said in a statement.
The high-risk operation in the north of Pakistan was completed in the darkness of night.
A military helicopter rescue operation was called off as night fell after two children had been pulled to safety. Flood lights were installed and a ground-based rescue continued.
Because helicopters could not fly after sunset, rescuers eventually shifted from an airborne effort to a risky operation that involved using one cable that was still intact to approach the car with an improvised chairlift.
Locally made cable cars are a widely used form of transportation in the mountainous Battagram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Gliding across steep valleys, they cut down travel time to schools, workplaces and businesses. But they often are poorly maintained, and every year people die or are injured while using them.