Firefighters rescue workers stranded on a downtown Vancouver tower

Vancouver firefighters safely rescued a group of workers strandedon a scaffolding near the topof the Toronto Dominion towerearly Wednesday morning.

The workers were performing maintenance on the outside of the building near the28thand29thfloors of the tower on Georgia Street , when the machinery malfunctioned around 2:00 a.m. PT.

They ended up stranded on the scaffolding inthe rain,over 100 metres above the ground.

Firefighters, along with Vancouver's Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team, responded to the call and sent a crew up to the roof to get the workers to safety.

Challenging rescue

"It was quite blustery up there with some rain, some darkness as well we had to take some extra lighting up to the roof," said Battalion Chief Ken Abel, with Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services.

Abel added that the darkness and wind made the rescue more challenging for his crews.

A lone firefighter was lowered over the edge of the building to get to the workers. The three were lifted back over onto the roof safely just before 4 a.m. PT.

It's not clear what caused the machinery to malfunction, but the three workers and the rescue team all made it back to groundsafely.