Two locally trained staff of the famous Arulmigu Dandayuthapani Swami shrine in Palani were the heroes who saved the day after rope cars that transport people from and to the top of the hill temple developed a snag on Wednesday and got stuck midway.
Barely 10 minutes after pilgrims got on eight rope cars at 8 am, the operator of the automatic facility realised that the shaft of one of the cars had developed a snag. Shortly after the shaft got stuck, the power supply to the rope car facility was automatically suspended.
The Devasthanam operates rope cars and winches separately for the benefit of devotees who cannot climb the 689 steps to reach the sanctum sanctorum of the Arulmigu Dandayuthapani Swami shrine.
While initially the devotees assumed that the service would resume shortly, soon they realised that there was something wrong with the rope cars and began to panic.
Temple authorities immediately alerted the Fire Department. Simultaneously two of its locally trained staff — Murugesan (a superintendent, coincidentally named after the presiding deity) and Alagarsamy (a daily wage staff) — plunged into a cinematic rescue mode.
Displaying enormous guts, Alagarsamy began to ascend the ropeway using bare hands from the foothill end of the temple.
In a parallel action, Murugesan began to descend the ropeway, again with bare hands, from the shrine end of the temple. As curious onlookers watched in disbelief, both of them managed to reach close to the suspended rope cars and calmed down the trapped devotees telling them not to panic and that everything was under control.
Later, the two got into separate rope cars and coordinated the rescue operations from the ground. Fire Department staff hurled a rope ladder up and Murugesan and Alagarsamy fastened it to the rope car. A while later, an indigenous cane chair was tied to a rope and sent up which worked like a pulley and devotees were brought down to safety seated on the chair. The children were sent down with their parents. The operation lasted for three hours.