One killed, 60 people left hanging in air overnight after Turkey cable car collapses

One person was killed and 60 people were left hanging in the air overnight after a cable car collapsed in Turkey, the interior ministry said on Saturday, prompting a massive rescue operation.

Ten helicopters and more than 607 rescue workers were involved in efforts to retrieve 174 people over the course of 23 hours.

The accident happened on Friday afternoon when a cabin at Antalya Cable Car, otherwise known as the Tunektepe Teleferik, collided with a broken pole outside the Turkish resort city of Antalya.

The cabin plunged into a rocky area down the mountainside as the pylon collapsed, Turkey’s interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said.

One person was killed, 10 others were injured and 184 people were stuck in other cabins left hanging in the air, the ministry said.

Seven helicopters with night vision and more than 500 rescue workers including specialist mountaineers were called in to help the stranded passengers and managed to retrieve 112 people.

But by Saturday morning, more than 60 people were still stranded in the air, the ministry said.

A video released by the interior ministry showed rescue personnel tied to safety ropes climbing into cabins.

They hope to complete the rescue work before sunset on Saturday.

A group of 10 opposition MPs were also headed to the scene to “investigate the accident in detail,” said Ozgur Ozel, chair of the opposition Republican People’s party.

Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation and ordered the detention of 13 people in relation to the incident, including officials from the private company running the cable car, Tunc Yilmaz, Turkey’s justice minister, told reporters after the rescue.

The Antalya Cable Car offers panoramas of Antalya and the Mediterranean Sea by taking passengers up over 1,500 metres to the top of Tunektepe.

According to its website, the cable car has 36 cabins with a capacity of six people each. The journey takes around nine minutes.