via Associated Press
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UNITED STATES – And happy new year 2022! A moonlit snowy landscape, a high and panoramic vantage point … The situation might have seemed idyllic for the New Year, if it had not been totally disastrous for twenty people in New Mexico, United States. United.
Twenty-one people spent New Years night stranded inside a cable car suspended in the void above a mountain near the city of Albuquerque, US media reports, including our colleagues at HuffPost.
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#BREAKING: We’re getting word a tram car with 20 people inside at Sandia Peak Tramway is stuck due to icy conditions. According to the GM, it became stuck last night. All are okay with water and blankets. Our team is heading that way. @ koat7news
Photo courtesy of Collin Deker. pic.twitter.com/I1vkaV3qKU
— Kalyn Norwood (@KalynNorwood) January 1, 2022
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“We learn that a tram car with 20 people inside at Sandia Peak is stranded due to freezing conditions. According to the general manager, it got stuck last night. All are well, with water and blankets. Our team is going there. ”
According toABC News, aid was able to deliver water, food and survival blankets to the travelers while they were released. They are in good health.
Due to freezing temperatures, the Sandia Peak aerial tramway got stuck in the middle of the race at around 10 p.m. It was carrying employees of the cable car and the mountain restaurant further away, who were returning home. In all, two cars were stranded, one carrying twenty people and the other one carrying only one.
If the incident occurred in the middle of the evening, it was not until 3 a.m. before the emergency services were alerted, according to ABC News and several more hours for rescuers to get to the scene. A wait that must have seemed endless to them.
Successful rescue after hours of waiting
According to the Albuquerque news station KRQE, the indicative is due to the formation of ice on the tram line. The general manager of the cable car told KRQE on Saturday morning, December 1, that rescuers had to wait until the weather conditions improved to start evacuating people to safety. What they were able to do later in the day. By the end of the afternoon, all the stranded people had reached dry land.
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“Photo taken through binoculars with a phone. Rescue of the Sandia Peak Tram ”.
The operation was not easy. Rescuers had to climb a tower close to the position of the cars and lower each passenger with a rope to the ridge below. A helicopter then made several trips to bring them back down the mountain.
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The Sandia Peak Tramway is a tourist attraction that takes cyclists to the highest point in the Sandia Mountains, which rises to over 3,100 meters. This journey normally takes around 15 minutes. Here are some who will already have an enthralling story to tell in 2022.
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See also on The HuffPost: In Colorado, fires choked by heavy snowfall
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