Karur: Just one day after the cable car commenced serving in the temple of Rathinageriswarar located in Aiyamalai, Karuran, there occurred an accident involving 11 devotees who were stranded at midway on Thursday afternoon. They were saved after two hours of struggle. Asked about this issue Mr. C Kumaradurai replied to Parami News that the service has been suspended for some time.
At around 2:15 pm an unexpected end came to cable car operation. While eight people trapped closer to the base station were quickly rescued by staff, three women from Palapati near Manikandan in Trichy district had to wait for another two hours before they could be extricated.
It usually takes two or three minutes one way
Three believers were just meters away from the top of the mountain, shouting for help. The temple officials tried calming and quietening them down. Women who had earlier fallen into a snag were rescued by technicians according to C Kumaradurai who is a Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department joint commissioner.
“Because of strong winds, cables of cars got entangled over it which is not unusual as there are always high wind velocities in Emmamalai area,” repeated Kumara Durai adding that “Our engineers will look at the problem and come up with permanent solution. Until then services have been temporarily suspended.”
The temple is situated on 1,178 feet above sea level and it also cost Rs 670 crore to install an eight-car ropeway system here. M.K.Stalin (Chief Minister) inaugurated this facility through video conferencing from Chennai yesterday i.e., Wednesday apart from which Rs 24 crore has also been spent towards providing devotees with proper civic amenities. On its first day more than five hundred pilgrims used this rope way service. In fact from morning till when operations failed within which period 298 worshippers employed it on Thursday.
