The district administrations have closed dozens of local chair lifts in several districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after the Battagram chairlift accident. The local chairlifts were being run in Swat, Shangla, Buner, Dir Lower, Dir Upper, Chitral, Haripur, Abbottabad and Mansehra districts.
Hundreds of buckets are operated with cable wires or ropes to access other areas in Battagram, Kohistan Upper, Lower, and Koli Palis. The Deputy Commissioners have been instructed to inspect local chairlifts/dollies in all districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. There were also reports from all the districts wherein people were using chairlifts, caused problem due to closures with many areas also complaining that they are facing food shortages.
Local dollies are used to access other villages, schools, markets in mountainous areas and mostly children are unable to go to school due to lift closure. The people of the areas have demanded for immediate rehabilitation from the administration and provided them alternatives instead of closing all such facilities, locally prepared. It was worth mentioned here that all eight passengers trapped inside a cable car since early Tuesday morning in Allai tehsil of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Battagram were rescued late at night after an operation that spanned over 14 hours.
The successful completion of the operation was first confirmed in a statement issued by Rescue 1122 and later by the military’s media affairs wing. Interim Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar also confirmed the development on social media platform X (formerly Twitter). “Relieved to know that all the kids have been successfully and safely rescued. Great teamwork by the military, rescue departments, district administration as well as the local people,” he said.
They got stuck when two wires of the cable car snapped, Assistant Commissioner (AC) Jawad Hussain earlier told Dawn.com, adding the cable car was privately run by locals for transportation across rivers as there were no roads.
