RANCHI: The ropeway tragedy at Trikut Hills in Deoghar would have been much worse if a local
person hadn’t shown extraordinary courage and rescued 11 people from the stranded ropeway trolleys.
Pann Panjiyay alias Pannalal, who works as a fitter with the Damodar Ropeway and Infra, which operated the ropeway, climbed the ropeway towers and reached to the trolleys to rescue the stranded people.
He tied the stranded people with ropes and let them slide down slowly with the help of a pulley.
Stating that he could not stop himself from helping the people stranded midair on the ropeway as he has been “feeding his family and educating children by the money earned from it (ropeway)”.
“I told others present there to start rescuing the tourists first. With the help of locals, I vacated around five-six trolleys hanging midair on lower altitude,” said Panna Lal.
He also helped the rescue team to reach out to the stranded trolleys and rescue the remaining people.
“Initially, people were not ready to do anything, but when I climbed up on the trolley, then others also joined me and started rescuing the people,” said Panna Lal.
The ropeway operator rewarded him with a cheque of Rs 1 lakh.
Chief Minister Hemant Soren felicitated him on Wednesday and said the bravery shown by Panna Lal was really commendable and he felt proud of him.
“The state government will also apprise the Central government about the bravery of Panna Lal,” said the CM.
Meanwhile, experts who conducted an audit on the Deoghar ropeway said that the ropeway was “fine” when a safety audit was done last month.
Two separate probes including one by the operator - Damodar Ropeways and Ifra Ltd (DRIL) - and another by the state government are however being conducted to ascertain the cause of the accident on Sunday which tragically claimed three lives, two of them while rescue efforts were being made on the next two days.
D Basak, Chief Scientist and project coordinator, Wire Rope and Electrical Engineering at Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research, Dhanbad, told PTI that "the ropeway was perfectly fine, we conducted a test on it."
The prestigious Central Government institute had conducted an audit of the ropeway between March 17 and March 22.
There were earlier allegations from some quarters that the ropeway had not passed safety audits.
DRIL officials said they were currently conducting an internal investigation into the accident involving their own experts as well as outside experts to pin-point the cause of the mishap.
"The company is operating ropeway services in 18 places of India. This is our first experience of a mishap in 50 years of ropeway services we are unable to understand as yet how this occurred," said DRIL general manager Mahesh Mehto to PTI.
When asked about the possibility of sabotage, Mehto said, "We cannot rule it out. But at the same time, we cannot claim (there was sabotage) until the probe report comes."
Locals had suggested negligence and overloading could have been causes for the accident.
However, state officials seemed to have ruled that out for the moment.
Vivek Kishor, block development officer of Manoharpur, explained that families often insist on travelling in a single trolley.
"One trolley is not supposed to carry more than four people. If a family of five, including children and insist on travelling together, the number may go up. Mostly kids below 10 years board the trolley along with four others," he said.
Jharkhand government which is conducting an official probe into the tragedy has announced that a compensation of Rs five lakh will be given to the dependents of each dead in the ropeway accident.
Deoghar civil surgeon Dr CK Sahi said, "Out of 45 people admitted to the Sadar hospital, 40 have been discharged. Five persons are undergoing treatment at the hospital. Conditions of two including a pregnant woman and one and a half-year-old child are a bit serious."
"The one and a half-year-old child is being referred to Ranchi for jaw surgery," he said.
n all some 59 people were however successfully rescued by Indian Air Force helicopters from the site of the mishap in operations spread over 46 hours starting on Sunday which lasted till Tuesday afternoon.
(With PTI Inputs)