Turkiye news: All 174 stranded in air after deadly cable car accident rescued

All 174 people who were stranded in the air above a mountain were rescued on Saturday, almost a day after the fatal cable car accident in Turkiye. A cable car pod had hit a pole on Friday causing it to burst open, killing one and injuring seven.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced the successful completion of the rescue operation.

A total of 607 search and rescue personnel along with 10 helicopters were involved in the rescue operation, the Associated Press reported citing officials said.

Teams from Turkey’s firefighting teams, emergency response agency, the Coast Guard, AFAD, and mountain rescue teams from different parts of Turkey were a part of the rescue operation.

The cable car accident occurred on Friday evening, during Eid al-Fitr holiday, at the Tunektepe cable car just outside the Mediterranean city of Antaly .

News agency the Associated Press citing official said that the casualties occurred when a pod hit a pole and burst open, “sending its passengers plummeting to the mountainside below”.

The deceased has been identified as a 54-year-old Turkish man, while among the seven injured were six Turkish citizens and one Kyrgyz national, including two children.

They were rescued by Coast Guard helicopters.

The Turkish media’s images of the accident showed the battered car swaying from dislodged cables on the side of the rocky mountain as medics tended the wounded.

Sharing the ordeal of spending seven hours in the air in a cable car pod, Istanbul resident Hatice Polat told Anadolu agency saying the power went out and the pod flipped four or five times.

Polat and her family were rescued seven hours into the ordeal.

“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,” she told Anadolu agency.

(With agency inputs)