75 people were trapped in the cabins of the Quito cable car. The Fire Department carried out continuous work until the early hours of Friday, July 7, to evacuate those affected. Photo: Courtesy of the Fire Department
A total of 75 people were affected by the paralysis of the Quito cable car due to an electrical problem, of which 27 were trapped in the cabins of the system, which led to the Corps of Quito Fire Department to design a complicated rescue operation in the middle of the night.
The rescue efforts lasted for approximately eleven hours.the time that some people came to remain inside the cabins suspended in the air, and ended without any personal injury being reported.
Around 3:00 a.m. local time (8:00 GMT) the operation that had managed to evict the entire system was concluded, allowing it to climb from 3,117 meters to 3,917 meters on a steep slope that leads to the crest of the Pichincha volcano, from where you can walk to its summit.
Among the 75 people affected, 48 were evacuated from the upper stationwhile another 17 were extracted from the cabins and another 10 managed to get out once the system could be reactivatedwhich speeded up and facilitated the rescue.
The mayor of Quito, Pabel Muñoz, explained that the cable car was stopped at 4:30 p.m. local time (21:30 GMT) but The private company that operates the system did not report the incident to the ECU 911 integrated emergency service until 6:03 p.m. local time (23:03 GMT).when it was already dark.
Hanging a thousand feet in the middle of the night
The operator tried to solve the event until 8:00 p.m. (1:00 GMT), and it was at that moment that it was decided that the firefighters should act to extract the trapped people from the cabins.
Muñoz assured that he was “absolutely outraged with the lack of a clear, efficient and safe protocol on the part of the company so that people can be rescued.”
In addition, valued the work of the city’s rescue teams, where some 60 people participated, including firefightersmunicipal agents and police who put their lives at risk to access the cabins where the people were trapped.
The mayor pointed out that the Quito Cable Car has been closed preventively until you obtain assurances that a similar event will not happen again.
The Quito Cable Car has been in operation since 2005 and is one of the main tourist attractions of the Ecuadorian capital due to the panoramic view it offers of the city from the heights.
With a distance of 2.5 kilometers, the Quito Cable Car ride takes about 18 minutes, which is enough to save a drop of about a thousand meters of altitude. EFE