Gulmarg’s freak accident not an isolated case in India

A freak accident in Gulmarg that killed seven people on Sunday may not have been an isolated incident.

Similar facilities across India, especially in the hill state of Uttarakhand, have seen similar accidents over the past decade.

In April and September 2013, two cable cars in Nainital — developed with Swiss technology and carrying 22 guests — experienced technical snags. On a busy afternoon in 2005, a cable car in Mussoorie stalled, leaving tourists dangling in the air.

Operators of cable car facilities say they have put in place strict checks to avoid accidents. “We do annual closure twice in a year to check faults, if any. Also, we make sure thrice a day that everything is going smoothly,” said Rakesh Dobhal, regional manager of Usha Breco that runs cable car facilities in Haridwar.

Apart from ski resorts and tourist destinations, manual and hydraulic cable cars are also run in around 20 locations in Garhwal — a lifeline for locals in a region where roads are sparse .

In the past four years, these facilities saw 16 accidents. On July 27 last year, a 26-year-old fell from a cable car into Mandakini river. On September 7, a threeyear-old girl drowned after she fell from the trolley. In 2014, a Nepali boy lost an arm because of a malfunctioning door .

In West Bengal’s Darjeeling, officials say they learnt lessons from a 2003 accident when four tourists died after cable cars fell from the ropeway into a ravine.

“Darjeeling district administration-appointed officials survey the conditions of the cable and the cable cars on a regular basis. Even the slightest of snags result in suspension of services till the snags are repaired,” said an official from the West Bengal forest department.

At the Kailasagiri Hill Park at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, tourists had a narrow escape last year after a hook of the car detached from the cable and fell. “Luckily, the accident took place at about eight feet from above the ground and hence, there were no major injuries,” former Visakhapatnam Urban Development Corporation vicechairman T Babu Rao Naidu, who was then in charge of the ropeway, told HT.