A cable car to one of Hong Kong's biggest tourist attractions, a giant statue of Buddha, has closed indefinitely after a cabin plunged 50m to the ground, officials said yesterday.
Authorities said they were investigating the cause of the accident, which occurred late on Monday, an hour after the service shut for the night.
No one was injured, although the cabin narrowly missed a nearby road.
"We are very concerned," a government spokesman said. "To ensure public safety, until the cause of the incident is known and we are certain that the cable car can operate safely, the government will not allow it to resume operation."
Hong Kong Secretary for Economic Development and Labour Stephen Ip said the government would bring in overseas experts to find out what went wrong.
"Unless and until we are satisfied that the system is safe, the management is capable, we will not allow the resumption of the service," he said. "Safety is the most important thing."
Tourism Board chief James Tien (
The Tian Tan Buddha is the world's tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha and attracts around a million visitors a year.
The cable car, which traverses 5.7km of verdant hills on the island of Lantau, is part of a major tourist complex that also includes a theater, shops and a traditional tea house.
The cable car cost HK$1 billion (US$128 million) to build and took two years to complete, but has been dogged by problems.
Its launch had to be postponed last summer after a breakdown during testing left 500 visitors stuck in cabins for two hours.
Seven senior staff at Skyrail, the Australian company behind the project, resigned shortly before the opening, citing a lack of transparency.
Hong Kong has committed billions of dollars to develop tourism facilities, including the US$3 billion Disneyland resort.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS