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Langkawi cable car malfunction: All stranded tourists rescued

All tourists who were stranded after a cable car system in the popular island resort of Langkawi broke down yesterday evening have been rescued and brought to the base station at the Oriental Village early today.

Panorama Langkawi Sdn Bhd, the operator of the Langkawi SkyCab cable car system, managed to rectify the malfunction just before 11 last night, to begin bringing down a total of 960 tourists and 78 staff from the 708-metre Mount Machinchang summit to the base station.

The whole process of evacuating the victims was carried out in the presence of Panorama Langkawi’s board member, Azizan Noordin, Langkawi police chief ACP Ghazali Che Awang and Kuah assemblyperson Nor Saidi Nanyan.

Azizan, who is also Langkawi Development Authority chief executive officer, said the cable car system would be halted for half-a-day today enable maintenance and service works to be carried out.

“The operation will only resume in the afternoon, when we are satisfied,” he added.

He said the technical teams of Panorama Langkawi Sdn Bhd, a LADA subsidiary and operator of the cable car system, had to resort to manual efforts to mobilise the system to bring the cable cars down to the base station.

“A 12-man technical team accompanied by two fire and rescue department personnel is already up at the middle station to replace a faulty bearing in the system, which had been the cause of the system to break down,” he said.

Azizan said as of 10pm, about 200 tourists were still stranded at the middle station, which is located about 650 metres above sea level and another 300 at the upper station, about 708 metres.

On the condition of the tourists who had arrived at the base station, he said there was one who had fainted but had regained consciousness before being brought to the Langkawi Hospital for observation.

“The rest were okay but tired, while some appeared to be a bit traumatic after being stranded inside a stalled cable car and hanging few hundred metres high for a couple of hours, but we are doing our best to comfort them and provide the necessary assistance,” said Azizan.

- Bernama

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