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Crew rescues 21 people on tram stuck in New Mexico

New Mexico search and rescue teams used ropes and helicopters on Saturday to rescue 21 people trapped overnight in two electric wagons after a frozen cable trapped the cars trapped high in the Sandia Mountains overlooking Albuquerque.

Lt Robert Arguellas, a spokesman for the Bernalillo County Fire Department, said early Saturday afternoon that first crews rescued 20 people trapped in a car and, hours later, rescued one person. The 21st is stuck in the second car.

Arguellas said all the people in the two cars were employees of the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway or a mountaintop restaurant.

Another employee went up the mountain to provide overnight security when the tram system was down Friday night due to freezing, Arguellas said.

Arguellas said there were no reports of injuries among those trapped. “Moreover just quite disappointing.”

To rescue 20 people in one vehicle, operators were able to move it to a nearby support tower halfway up the mountain, and early Saturday morning search and rescue personnel walked to area and climb the tower to deliver blankets and other items. Arguellas told people inside heated cars.

Search and rescue personnel for several hours used ropes and other equipment to lower the stranded personnel about 85 feet (26 meters) to the ground before escorting them to a nearby landing site in terrain steep and rocky where the tower is located, Arguellas said.

The 20 people were then flown by helicopter to the foothills, he said.

Arguellas said the second vehicle with a staff member was higher in the mountains and positioned the vehicle was too high off the ground to lower with a rope.

But the tram system was able to inched the second vehicle down the cable to the rescue position at the support tower, and rescuers then used the ropes to bring down the 21st person as they did the others, Arguellas said.

Brian Coon, a tram system manager, said there was an unusually rapid build-up of ice on one of the cables that caused it to fall below the tramway, making it dangerous to continue on, KOB-TV reported. believe.

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