Dozens of people were rescued early Friday morning after being detained for over ten hours on one of the world’s tallest tourist cable cars in Ecuador’s capital Quito.
The municipality of Quito said in a statement that 75 individuals were lowered to the ground, all “safe and sound,” after an operation including firemen and police.
The tourists were held for “nearly 10 hours” after the system was rendered inoperable owing to an electrical malfunction.
According to the statement, 48 persons were rescued from the system’s topmost terminal at an altitude of approximately 4,000 meters (13,120 feet).
Seventeen people were saved from stranded gondolas on the line, and another ten were rescued after the system was restarted.
The cable car goes 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) between two stations, the lowest of which is at an elevation of 3,100 meters above sea level.
On the municipality’s Twitter account, video footage shows people being abseiled to safety from a gondola. Others, including children, are seen coming from their cabins, draped in emergency blankets, after their cabins had safely returned to the ground.
