Cable car accident in Turkey: rescue operation is still ongoing

A dead one
Cabin collides with mast: Serious cable car accident in southern Turkey

Rescue workers try to save the occupants of the cable car

© Uncredited/IHA/AP/DPA

Many people in Antalya use the sugar festival to take a cable car ride. Then a cabin hits a mast and falls. One person dies, more than 180 are stranded. The rescue operation is underway.

In a cable car accident in the southern Turkish city One person died in Antalya and ten others were injured. Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca wrote late Friday evening on the X platform (formerly Twitter) that a cabin on the Tünektepe cable car had crashed. 184 people were trapped in the other 29 cable car cabins, 30 of whom have now been rescued. The health condition of the injured is not serious. They are in a hospital. The rescue work continued. There was initially no information about the cause of the accident.

One dead: cable car accident in southern Turkey

According to the state news agency Anadolu, the cable car was particularly busy because of the sugar festival at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. One of the cable car masts fell over, a cabin hit it and fell into rocky terrain. Fire brigade, police and rescue teams are in the area.

Antalya’s mayor Muhittin Böcek wrote on X early Saturday morning that rescue efforts for the stranded citizens were continuing. “We continue to work continuously until all evacuations can be carried out safely.” Anadolu reported that during the rescue work, a basket roped down from a helicopter was brought to the cabins into which people had to climb.

According to the operator, the cable car has been in operation since 2017 and consists of 36 cabins. It transports its guests to the summit of Tünektepe at a height of 605 meters. The journey takes around nine minutes. There is space for six people in a cabin. It can transport 1200 people per hour. From the summit there is a view of Antalya and the Mediterranean. Antalya is a popular tourist destination.

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DPA

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