Turkey cable car accident leaves one dead and 40 passengers stranded above mountain

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The last of 174 people stranded in cable cars dangling over a mountain in southern Turkey have all been brought to safety, after one pod hit a pole and burst open.

One person was killed and seven others were injured on Friday evening after their pod plummeted to the rocks below in the Antalya Konyaalti district.

Several of those stuck in their cable cars had to wait 23 hours until Saturday afternoon before they could be airlifted to safety.

Istanbul resident Hatice Polat and her family were rescued seven hours into the ordeal. Speaking to the Anadolu agency, she said the power went out and the pod flipped four or five times.

“The night was awful, we were very scared. There were children with us, they passed out,” she said. “It was torture being up there for seven hours. It is swaying every second, you’re constantly in fear. … It was very traumatic, I don’t know how we’ll get over this trauma.”

The accident occurred around 5:30 pm at the Tunektepe cable car just outside the Mediterranean city of Antalya during the busy Eid al-Fitr holiday.

A total of 607 search and rescue personnel and 10 helicopters were involved, including teams from Turkey‘s emergency response agency, AFAD, the Coast Guard, firefighting teams and mountain rescue teams from different parts of the country, officials said. Helicopters with night-vision capabilities had continued rescuing people throughout the night.

State-run Anadolu Agency identified the deceased as a 54-year-old Turkish man. The injured were six Turkish citizens and one Kyrgyz national, including two children, who were rescued by Coast Guard helicopters.

Images in Turkish media showed the battered car swaying from dislodged cables on the side of the rocky mountain as medics tended the wounded.

Friday was the final day of a three-day public holiday in Turkey marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which sees families flock to coastal resorts.

The cable car carries tourists from Konyaalti beach to a restaurant and viewing platform at the summit of the 618-meter (2,010-foot) Tunektepe peak.

It is run by Antalya Metropolitan Municipality. The cable car line was completed in 2017 and receives a major inspection around the beginning of the year, as well as routine inspections throughout the year.

Antalya Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation. An expert commission including mechanical and electrical engineers and health and safety experts was assigned to determine the cause of the incident.