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Stunning footage shows how Pakistani children were forced to hang on as they fell 1,200ft to death in a cramped cable car for 16 hours before being rescued.
Drone footage obtained by the BBC shows passengers clinging as the train carriage hangs precariously at a high angle above the remote Allai Valley in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
One of the passengers is then seen using a zipline to get to safety.
All of the people inside the cable car, six children and two adults, were rescued on Tuesday in a rescue operation involving zip line experts and a military helicopter.
The cable car company owner was later arrested by police on multiple charges including negligence and endangering precious life.
Drone footage shows passengers hanging on as the car hangs precariously above a valley.
School children who were rescued from the broken cable car said on Wednesday they repeatedly feared they were close to death during the 16-hour ordeal, despite attempts by their parents to reassure them by mobile phone.
Several children, who were on their way to school on Tuesday when one of the car cables broke, also called for a school and a bridge to be built in their village so that they no longer need to take the cable car in the future.
One of the youngest was grabbed by a commando tied to a helicopter by a rope, while others were lowered to the ground in a makeshift chairlift constructed from a wooden bed frame and ropes.
“I had heard stories of miracles, but I saw with my own eyes a miraculous rescue,” said Osama Sharif, 15, one of the survivors.
Osama was on his way to school on Tuesday to receive his final exam results when one of the cables snapped.
“We suddenly felt a jolt, and it all happened so suddenly that we thought we were all going to die,” he said in a phone interview.
Some of the passengers had mobile phones and started making calls, with worried parents trying to reassure the children.
“They were telling us not to worry, help is coming,” he said.
After several hours, passengers saw helicopters flying through the air.
One of the passengers uses a zipline to get to safety. All of the people inside the cable car, six children and two adults, were rescued during a 12-hour rescue operation involving zipline experts and a military helicopter.
The cable car broke, leaving eight people suspended 1,200ft above the river canyon at Battagram, about 120 miles north of Islamabad.
Locally made cable cars are a widely used means of transport in the mountainous Battagram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
By gliding down steep valleys, they reduce travel time to schools, workplaces and businesses. But they are often poorly maintained and every year people die or are injured using them.
On Wednesday, police arrested Gul Zarin, the owner of the cable car, for ignoring security measures.
Local authorities in the mountainous regions of the northwest have announced that they will close all cable cars deemed unsafe.
Thousands of people came to watch this risky operation on Tuesday.
At one point, a rope lowered from a helicopter swung wildly as a child, restrained by a harness, was pulled up.
The air currents caused by the swirling blades threatened to weaken the only cable preventing the cable car from crashing into the bottom of the river canyon.
“We cried and we had tears in our eyes because we were afraid the cable car would break down,” Osama said.
After sunset, with the helicopters unable to fly, the rescuers changed tactics.
They used a makeshift chairlift to approach the cable car using the only cable still intact, local police chief Nazir Ahmed said.
Syed Hammad Haider, a senior provincial official from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said the gondola was suspended 1,200 feet above the ground.
Pakistan Army soldiers carry out a rescue operation for students stranded on a chair lift in Battagram
Cries of “God is great” erupted as the chairlift descended to the ground in the final leg of the operation shortly before midnight.
Ahmed said the children were given oxygen as a precaution before being released to their parents, many of whom burst into tears of joy.
Two other children who survived, Rizwan Ullah and Gul Faraz, told The Associated Press they would not forget the ordeal for years.
Gul said he feared, while waiting for rescue, the cable car would crash to the ground and “we would die soon”.
He called on the government to build a school in the area and connect their village to nearby towns with a bridge and a road “so that our elders and young people don’t face such things”.
Rizwan, 11, said he no longer wanted to use the cable car, but that would only be possible if a school was built nearby.
Ata Ullah, another rescued student, said he will try to be brave the next time he has to ride one.
“I’m afraid to use the cable car, but I have no other choice. I will go back to my school when the cable car is fixed,” he said.