One person was killed and 60 people were left hanging in the air overnight after a cable car collapsed in Turkey, the interior ministry said on Saturday.
The accident happened on Friday afternoon when a cabin at Antalya Cable Car, otherwise known as the Tunektepe Teleferik, collided with a broken pole outside the Turkish resort city of Antalya.
The cabin plunged into a rocky area down the mountainside as the pylon collapsed, Turkey’s interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
One person was killed, 10 others were injured and 184 people were stuck in other cabins left hanging in the air, the ministry said.
Seven helicopters with night vision and more than 500 rescue workers including specialist mountaineers were called in to help the stranded passengers and managed to retrieve 112 people.
But by more than 60 people left stranded in the air overnight, the ministry said.
Forty-three people remained stuck by midday Saturday, rescue services said.
None of the people waiting to be rescued had critical injuries or were in poor health, Disaster and Emergency Management Authority chairman Okay Memis told reporters at the scene.
A video released by the interior ministry showed rescue personnel tied to safety ropes climbing into cabins.
They hope to complete the rescue work before sunset on Saturday.
A group of 10 opposition MPs were also headed to the scene to “investigate the accident in detail,” said Özgür Özel, chair of the opposition Republican People’s party.
The Antalya Cable Car offers panoramas of Antalya and the Mediterranean Sea by taking passengers up over 1,500 metres to the top of Tunektepe.
According to its website, the cable car has 36 cabins with a capacity of six people each. The journey takes around nine minutes.
