Tirkut Rescue

Ropeway disaster at Tirkut, Jharkhand
On 10 April 2022 two cable carts of the ropeway near Deogarh at Jharkhand collided with each other. One cart fell to the ground below resulting in the death of two occupants and five others were badly injured. Tikrit ropeway had facilitated the Hindu devotees to visit the famous Trikutachi Mahadeva Temple at Trikut hills near Deogarh. Trikut Pahar is situated around 15 Kms away from the town of Deogarh. Its peak goes to the height of 2470 ft AMSL and about 1500 ft from the ground.
 
Once the accident took place the carts were stuck in mid-air at various heights ranging up to 800 metres. Devotees that were stuck inside carts at lower heights were rescued by local authorities. But for 37 occupants who were marooned inside carts that were dangling at higher heights there was no way to rescue them and as the night fell, they had to continue clinging on to their lives without any food, water and with uncertainties of their fates. Snapping of the damaged cables would have meant certain death for all passengers.
 
It was a harrowing time for the rest of the devotees marooned inside a number of carts at different heights waiting for their turn to be rescued as the chopper made a number of shuttles to drop the rescued survivors at Deogarh airport, refuel and get back into action. More choppers were pressed on to the service that included one Cheetah for the TFC to monitor the
effort in situ, one ALH and one more V5 from 157 HU. As sunset approached further rescue attempts had to be called off. One V5 had winch motor failure and so a Garud commando had to spend the night with the survivors in the cart. A total of 22 survivors were rescued on the first day.  

 
On the second day the rescue effort started at 0600 hrs. More survivors were winched up one by one. For rescuing small children, they had to be strapped to a commando and winched
up together. The rescue mission ended successfully on 12 April 22. Together they had rescued 35 survivors. The whole event was telecasted live from Deogarh.Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendar Modi in a telecast message congratulated the IAF for successfully conducting the rescue mission and said that the country was proud of the brave airmen and the Air Force.
 
The painting depicts one Mi-17 V5 hovering over the accident site winching up a child strapped to a Garud commando.