A student who was stuck in a cable car suspended over a ravine in northwest Pakistan has spoken out about the 15-hour ordeal.
“I thought it was my last day and I will be no more,” Attaullah Shah was quoted as saying by AFP.
The 15-year-old, one of seven students travelling on the chairlift when one of its cables snapped, expressed gratitude for having survived the incident. “God has granted me a second life,” he said.
The families of the students rescued from the broken-down cable car erupted with joy as the last child was freed late last night, an official said.
Night fell as the first of the students was rescued and it was several more hours until the cable car was finally cleared of passengers.
“People kept praying until the last person was rescued,” emergency official Waqar Ahmad told AFP. “Once everyone had been rescued, the families started crying with joy and hugging each other.”
Pakistan’s government confirmed the rescue mission was complete some 15 hours after the car first got stuck, and declared inspections of cable cars will be carried out across the country.