Chennai, Jul 26 (IANS): Three women devotees who were stuck in a rope car that was taking them to the Rathnagiriswarar Temple in Karur District of Tamil Nadu, were rescued after two hours on Thursday.

The ropeway had been inaugurated just a day before and temple authorities said that a technical snag caused by high winds led to the rope car getting struck.

A few devotees had got into the rope car from the base of the shrine to reach the temple for ‘darshan’ and three women devotees had boarded the rope car to descend.

However, both the cars got struck. While the authorities immediately rescued eight devotees who were struck in the car that was going up from the base of the shrine, the car that was descending with three women devotees in it, got struck.

The temple authorities along with fire and rescue personnel conducted rescue operations for two hours and brought the women devotees to safety.

The temple authorities said that strong winds had led to the snag in the rope car service and they had directed the engineers to find a solution to this.

The Rathnagiriswarar Temple is located at a height of 1,178 feet from the sea level and the ropeway was commissioned on Wednesday.

The ropeway was constructed at a cost of Rs 6.70 crore.

It may be recalled that Chief Minister MK Stalin had inaugurated the ropeway by video conferencing on Wednesday.