LANGKAWI: Eighty-nine of over 500 tourists who were stranded after the Langkawi SkyCab cable car here broke down late this afternoon arrived at the base station at Oriental Village here tonight.
Langkawi Development Authority (LADA) chief executive officer, Datuk Azizan Noordin said the 89 tourists who arrived at the base station about 9.30pm, were those stranded inside the cable cars when the system failure occurred at 5.48pm.
“Another three cable cars carrying 18 tourists are on their way down after being stuck for about four hours between the middle station and the base station,” he told Bernama tonight.
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.
“InsyaAllah, once the restoration works had been carried out, the remainder could be brought down to the base station… hopefully, before midnight,” he told Bernama.
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.
He said the cable car would cease operations for one day tomorrow to enable a thorough investigation into the incident.-- BERNAMA