The accident in Jammu and Kashmir’s Gulmarg which killed seven people after they were violently flung from a cable car on Sunday is definitely not an isolated incident.
Similar facilities across India, especially in the hill state of Uttarakhand, have seen a rash of accidents over the past decade.
In April and again in September 2013, two cable cars in Uttarakhand’s Nainital – developed with Swiss technology and carrying 22 guests – experienced technical snags. On a busy afternoon in 2005, a cable car in Mussorie stalled, leaving tourists dangling in the air – only timely rescue by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police averted a crisis.
Operators of cable-car facilities said that they have put into place strict checks to ensure that accidents are being avoided.
“We have a strict schedule for the security of tourists and maintenance. We do annual closure twice in a year to check faults if any. Also, we ensure thrice a day that everything is going smoothly,” said Rakesh Dobhal, Regional Manager of Usha Breco which runs two cable-car operations in Haridwar, one up to the Mansa Devi and the other to the Chandi Devi temple.
Apart from ski resorts and tourist destinations, manual and hydraulic cable-cars are also run in around 20 locations in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand – a lifeline for local residents in a region where roads are sparse and air or train networks absent.
However, in the last four years since flash floods in the Kedarnath Valley, these facilities have seen 16 accidents. On July 27 previous year, a 26-year-old fell from a cable car into the Mandakini river. Later on September 7, a three-year-old girl was drowned after she fell from the trolley. In 2014, a Nepali boy lost his arm after it was crushed by a malfunctioning door.
In West Bengal’s Darjeeling, officials said that they learnt their lesson from a 2003 accident when four tourists lost their lives after two 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 into suspension of services till the time the snags are repaired,” said an official from the West Bengal Forest Department.
At the Kailasgiri 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. So, there were no major injuries,” Former Visakhapatnam Urban Development Corporation Vice-Chairman T Babu Rao Naidu, who was then in-charge of the ropeway said.
The 375-metre-long ropeway offers a 360-degree view of the picturesque port city from fibre-glass cabins and is used by around 500 tourists every weekend.
“We have adopted all precautionary measures to ensure that there will be no further accidents, even smaller ones,” T Babu Rao Naidu added.
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