Cable Car Hits Pillar: 75 To 100 People Were Trapped In 32 Gondolas Over The Rhine River In Cologne, Germany
A cable car collided with a support pillar, causing approximately 75 people in 32 cable car gondolas to become trapped in Cologne, Germany, on Sunday. According to the BBC, when the gondola hit part of the support structure, it caused the entire lot of 32 cable cars to come to a sudden stop over the Rhine River in Germany. That left the 75 people suspended in air, needing to be rescued by emergency personnel. Some of those trapped folks were as high as 13 stories in the air.
As seen in photos of the rescue effort, children were being lowered to the ground. In spite of news of a cable car colliding with the support structure, no injuries were immediately reported. However, according to the Guardian, there were slight injuries to a pregnant woman and a man during the rescue effort, which involved tall cranes be used to bring the passengers out of the stuck cable cars.
As reported by Deutsche Welle, the dozens of people that were trapped over the Rhine River in Cologne have been rescued. That publication puts the number of people that were rescued as high as 100 in the western German city.
The people who were trapped in the cable cars had to wait approximately two hours, dangling in the air in the gondolas prior to emergency personnel arriving and getting them down. In the wake of the accident, officials noted that the gondolas will be inspected in order to make sure that the cable cars are beholden to all safety standards.
The popular cable cars have been in operation for 60 years, running over the Rhine River for at least six decades. But Sunday’s accident wasn’t the first time the cable car system has experienced a problem. In October, 2014, a gondola was jolted by a heavy wind, and caused a family to become trapped inside of Cologne’s cable car system.
The below video shows the rescue effort that happened on Sunday, displaying just how far those rescued had to be transported from the sky to the ground.
Children hung onto their parents during the melee, while rescuers used hand signals to tell the stranded passengers to remain calm.
Children dangling above river after horror cable car accident in Cologne. Latest images here >>> https://t.co/371J7hKtKK #Germany #NRW pic.twitter.com/H5VOVEQCM0
— Daily Express (@Daily_Express) July 30, 2017
[Featured Image by Rainer Jensen/AP Images]
