Screenshot of a video shot inside a broken-down cabin of the Jounieh teleferique
BEIRUT — All passengers trapped in a Jounieh cable car, in Keserouan district, north of Beirut, were eventually rescued by the Civil Defense, the Red Cross, and the Lebanese Army on Thursday, according to the National News Agency's correspondent dispatched to the scene.
This was later confirmed by a source within the company that manages the infrastructure. At around 5 p.m., the same source had informed L'Orient Today that the final seven people who remained trapped inside the two cabins were in the process of being brought to safety.
This type of incident — a technical failure causing two cabins to collide — is rare for aerial cable lift systems such as this one, which links the coastal city of Jounieh to the mountain town of Harissa, overlooking the bay.
A video filmed by people in an adjacent cabin also suspended in the air has circulated widely on social media. A man and a woman can be heard reciting a prayer.
Local TV channel LBCI reported that two cabins on the Jounieh Teleferique collided due to a mechanical failure, as shown in the video. According to the channel, the Civil Defense managed to rescue two people, using a crane, earlier in the afternoon.
At around 5 p.m., before the rescue operation had been completed, the Lebanese Tourism and Cable Car Development Company, which reports to the Directorate of Investments within the Ministry of Energy and Water, indicated in a press release that a total of 25 people had been trapped and rescued. This number is lower than the figures circulating earlier in the day.
In the press release, the company also said that the "automatic safety system" had stopped the line after the malfunction became apparent, "to avoid any further damage."
The state-run National News Agency (NNA) previously reported that 43 people were still trapped mid-afternoon, while 13 others had been evacuated by the Civil Defense and the Lebanese Army. An army helicopter was also dispatched to take part in the rescue operation, according to information from NNA, which L'Orient Today was able to confirm.
"We are carrying out regular maintenance work. We still don't know what caused the cable car to break down [on Thursday]," Naji Boulos, one of the company's partners, told NNA. "There are no victims ... There's no need to panic," he added, speaking before the rescue operation concluded.
In a statement to the press at the end of a tour of Beirut, the Minister of the Interior and Municipalities, Bassam Mawlawi, said that the cable car incident reflected "the irresponsibility to which some people are accustomed and the lack of maintenance which makes citizens hostages to what happened."
The outgoing Minister of Tourism, Walid Nassar, who traveled to the site, declared in a television appearance that his ministry was not responsible, given that the company running the cable car was under the authority of the Ministry of Energy.
Financial strain has plagued several ministries within the government, which waited a long time to authorize the company to adjust its fares to the real exchange rate on the market, while the country has been going through a crisis marked by the collapse of its currency and banking sector for the past four years.
