Tourists left stranded after blackout

By Anele Siwa
22 January 2008

Eskom's rolling blackouts left tourists visiting one of Cape Town’s most popular attractions in total darkness on Monday evening.

Officials say 37 people were left in the dark while visiting the cable cars on Table Mountain. Meanwhile a further 500were stranded at the top.

"Power to the mountain had been cut at 7.49pm. It is believed that the guiding mechanism that normally guides the cable cars into the docking stations to move out of position and this prevented docking cars from moving properly," says spokesperson for the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company, Collete van Aswegen.

"The first priority was to get people out of the cable car so that our technical staff could then access a car mechanism that has stark," says van Aswegen.

"It took the technical team 20 minutes to repair the problem. This is for the first time in the history of cableway we have this kind incident," she added.

Meanwhile the Wilderness Search and Rescue have responded to two incidents on Table Mountain.

"One was German tourist who died while walking on his own from Lion's Head," says spoksperson Craig Celayden.

According to Celayden while they were trying to recover the victims they became involved in the incident at Table Mountain Cableway Company after blackouts disrupted the mechanism of cable cars.

"The trapped people were slightly panicking first, when the power came back they were worried that they were not moving down," says Celayden.