The cable-car service in tourist resort Gulmarg would remain suspended for at least 10 days, an official said on Monday, a day after seven people were killed when two cable cars were knocked by a pine tree during a storm.

According to the reports, the services were resorted Sunday evening. The tourism department which manages the cable car in the tourist resort has decided to call in the experts from the French company Pomagalski, which set up the gondola lift. The director of the state tourism department Mamood Ahmad Shah said that the French company would be called in for checks and maintenance work.

A Delhi-based couple, their two young daughters and three locals – two of them travel guides – were killed when a tree uprooted by a storm fell on the ropeway.

At least two cable cars were knocked against the hill side and recoiled violently, killing seven people on the spot and injuring four.

The system was up two hours after the crash and by 6pm all 150 stranded passengers were brought back to the base station.

“The cable cars would run only after a thorough check by the French experts and it could take 10-15 days,” Shah said.

The gondola service is among key tourist attractions in a region counted among Asia’s best ski resorts.

Shah said Jayant Andraskar, his wife Manshea and their daughters Anagha and Janhvi, who lived in Delhi’s Shalimar Garden, hailed from Nagpur. “The bodies have already been airlifted from Srinagar and are on the way to Nagpur,” he said.

Jayant taught civil engineering at Delhi’s Pusa Institute and Manshea was a homemaker. They moved to the Capital five years ago.

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