Around 39 people were rescued while eight remain trapped mid-air in three cable cars following a malfunction of a ropeway at Trikut Hills in Jharkhand's Deoghar district on Sunday.
Most passengers were airlifted with the help of two Air Force helicopters while others were helped to land vertically.
Deoghar Deputy Commissioner Manjunath Bhajantri said the rescue operations were being carried out by the combined teams of the Indian Air Force, Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).
The death count in the accident climbed to three when a person fell down from a helicopter while being rescued last evening.
Officials said that water and food are being provided to the trapped people with the help of drones.
Visuals showed fidgety people inside the cable cars that hung in the air against the backdrop of a rocky hill cliff that overlooked a densely-forested valley.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has ordered a high-level investigation into the ropeway accident. O"I express my deepest condolences on the incident on Trikut mountain and the deaths in it. There will be a high-level inquiry into the matter," the Chief Minister said in a tweet yesterday.
देवघर त्रिकुट रोपवे हादसे में फँसे हुए लोगों को सुरक्षित निकालने के लिए प्रशासन, सेना और NDRF की टीम पूरी मुस्तैदी के साथ काम कर रही है।
मैं स्थिति पर लगातार नजर रख रहा हूँ। शीघ्र ही सभी सकुशल निकाल लिए जायेंगे।
— Hemant Soren (@HemantSorenJMM) April 11, 2022AdvertisementThe Trikut ropeway, according to the Jharkhand tourism department, is India's highest vertical ropeway. It is around 766-metre long.
