Malaysia's Langkawi SkyCab has faced technical issues and broke down on Sunday. The incident left more than 1000 people stranded after the malfunction trapped all the passengers inside stalled cable cars that hung in mid-air for a couple of hours. Local Fire and Rescue Department alerted to the incident and successfully rescued all the passengers.
The incident took place at around 5.48 pm. Bernama claimed on Monday that a total number of 1,048 people and 78 staff of the cable car company from the 708-metre Mount Machinchang were safely brought down by the help of the rescue team.
According to Asia One, the rescue team put all their efforts to save each of passengers. Langkawi SkyCab staff also helped the rescue team to operate the gondolas manually to bring all those trapped passengers down.
Mohd Fadzlullah Mohd Noor, the Langkawi Fire and Rescue Department's spokesman Superintendent said that the rescue operation took three hours, more specifically from 7 pm to 10 pm, to reach the cable car station by climbing up a jungle track.
He also mentioned that the team is repairing the cable car at the middle station and once they are done, the team will rescue other passengers who were stuck on the mountain. "The problem is due to a faulty bearing," he further added.
On Sunday, at around 10.45 pm, Mohd Noor said that the repairing work would be done within 20 minutes. According to him, around 300 people were still stuck up Mount Machinchang.
The service was disrupted for almost five hours and just before 11 pm, the operator of the Langkawi SkyCab cable car system called Panorama Langkawi Sdn Bhd was fixed.
Mohamad Mustakim Mukhtar, Kedah Fire and Rescue Department public relations officer said that at around 6.53 pm when they received reports on the incident, a team of 16 rescue officer from Langkawi Fire and Rescue Department rushed to the location at the Oriental Village in Teluk Burau, Langkawi.
He said, "As soon as we arrived on the scene at 7.06pm, the team assisted the Langkawi SkyCab staff in carrying spare parts up to the first station."
The Langkawi Development Authority (LADA) chief executive officer, Datuk Azizan Noordin has mentioned about one passenger who-who had fainted but before reaching to Langkawi Hospital he regained consciousness.
