Shimla: Thirteen tourists here had a harrowing time on Tuesday as they were trapped in the Himachal Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC) lift at the Mall here for nearly two hours.
The incident took place in the evening, when one of the two lifts developed a snag and got stuck midway while going down.
Initially the tourists took it to be a matter of a few minutes, but started panicking when they began to feel suffocated inside. The elevator staff panicked too.
The police, fire brigade and rescue parties rescued the stranded persons after nearly two hours.
The emergency exit and the clutch were stuck, and the tourists had to be taken out by manually pulling the lift, which got stuck for a while again when some policemen were going up after the rescue operation.
However, HPTDC staff said the claim of tourists that they were stuck for two hours was “exaggerated.” The staff said they were taken out in less than thirty minutes.
HPTDC managing director and other senior officials supervised the rescue operations. Officials said one lift was out of order and overloading in the other lift could have been the reason behind the snag. — PTI
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