2 dead, 15 stuck on ropeway
RANCHI: A man died on Monday after falling off a helicopter during a rescue operation following a ropeway accident in Jharkhand a day earlier, with over a dozen people still trapped in cable cars stranded at a height of 800-1,000 feet in the state’s Deoghar district, according to officials. Thirty-two people were rescued from 12 cable cars of the Trikut Ropeway in Deoghar district on Monday, over 26 hours after they were stranded mid-air due to a collision between two cars, police said, adding that 15 people were still stuck on Monday night. A woman died after getting injured in the accident on Sunday.
“In total, 32 people were rescued; one person slipped off a helicopter while being airlifted, while another 15 are still in the cabins. One woman had died of her injuries on Sunday night. The rescue operation was stopped after dusk due to visibility issues and it will begin tomorrow (Tuesday) morning,” said additional director general of Jharkhand police, RK Mallick, who is overseeing the rescue operation. Indian Air Force (IAF) officials confirmed that a man had fallen from a helicopter during the rescue operation but said that more details were awaited. “These are high-risk missions that are rarely undertaken by air forces globally,” an IAF official said, asking not to be named.
A joint team of the IAF, Indian Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) is conducting the rescue operation.
According to Deoghar deputy commissioner Manjunath Bhajantri, the ropeway, which spans a length of 766 metres across the popular Trikut Hills, came to a grinding halt on Sunday evening after the rope on the down line dislocated from the pulley, leading to a collision between cars.
According to those rescued, the accident occurred between 3pm and 3.30pm on Sunday.
ITBP spokesperson Vivek Pandey said the operation was taking time as the ropes were making it difficult for helicopters to reach the cable cars.
“The first to be rescued were in the cabins that were only around 60 feet from the ground. But the risk increased as height of the cabins progressively increased to over 500 feet .... We could not have risked trying to run the ropeway again as it is risky... So ultimately, the only option was to either provide anchors to the stranded and take them down, or airlift and land them at safe place,” said Pandey.
“The tourism department failed to do even the routine maintenance work in past two years. More so, tourism minister Hafizul Ansari failed to even reach the site on Sunday, despite being in Deoghar. While our Deoghar MP, Nishikant Dubey, was stationed at the site all night and was coordinating with the Centre for help,” said Jharkhand BJP president Deepak Prakash.
Tourism minister Ansari said, “We will conduct a detailed inquiry about the accident after the rescue operation is over.”