One person was killed and several people were injured in a cable car accident in the southern Turkish tourist metropolis of Antalya. The cable car is said to have been particularly busy because of the Sugar Festival.
One person was killed and several people were injured in a cable car accident in the southern Turkish tourist metropolis of Antalya. Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca wrote on the X platform (formerly Twitter) that a cabin on the Tünektepe cable car had crashed. Turkish media reports that 184 people were trapped, around 100 of whom have now been rescued. The health condition of the injured is stable. They are in a hospital. The rescue work continued.
There was initially no information about the cause of the accident. According to 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.
Cable car in operation since 2017
Antalya’s mayor Muhittin Böcek wrote on X: “We continue to work continuously until all evacuations can be carried out safely.” The state news agency Anadolu reported that during the rescue work a basket was lowered from a helicopter to the cabins into which the 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. 1,200 people can be transported per hour.
Oliver Bemelmann, SWR, currently Istanbul, tagesschau, April 13, 2024 10:28 a.m