Operator blames ‘act of God’ for accident

THE GENERAL MANAGER OF THE PROJECT

SAID THERE WAS NO VIOLATION OF STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE

The management of the company that operates the gondola cable car service in Gulmarg in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday blamed “an act of God” for the Sunday tragedy that killed seven people, including four members of a Delhi family.

Riyaz Ahmad, general manager of the project, said there was no violation of the standard operating procedure (SOP) on Sunday as alleged by some.

Among the dead were Jayant Andraskar, his wife Manisha and their daughters Anagha and Janhvi — residents of Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh. The other three victims were identified as Mukhtar Ahmed Ganie, Javed Ahmed Khandey and Farooq Ahmed.

Another 150 people who were in other cable cars were saved.

“We don’t operate the gondola during high velocity winds and there is an inbuilt safety mechanism in the system that automatically stops the operation whenever there are gusty winds,” said Ahmad. “What happened yester- day was a great misfortune because of an act of God.”

Ahmad said there was bright sunshine when the cable cars were in motion. But, he said, “suddenly a gush of strong wind uprooted a pine tree that hit another large pine tree, whose branch fell on the cable derailing it from the pulley. The system stopped operation and we found out that the cable had been derailed between the fifth and sixth towers”.

After getting derailed, said Ahmad, the cabins started swinging dangerously but no cabin crashed to the ground. “What caused the deaths of our guests was the shattering of glass,” he said. “After the glass shattered, the occupants were thrown out of the cabin because of the way the car was dangerously swinging.”