Relief as school children rescued from chair lift dangling over a ravine in Pakistan

All eight people in the chair lift incident in Pakistan have been taken to safety

All six children and two adults trapped in a chair lift almost 300m above a ravine in a remote area of Pakistan have been rescued.

A military helicopter rescued the first child earlier, before having to abort the mission due to high winds and darkness, while zip wire specialists managed to bring the others to safety late on Tuesday evening.

The children, believed to be aged between ten and 16, were crossing the valley on their way to school in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when the cable broke at a height of around 275m midway through its journey in a remote, mountainous area. The journey was the fifth taken by the chair lift for the morning.

People watch as an army soldier slings down from a helicopter during a rescue mission to recover students stuck in a chairlift in Pashto village of mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on August 22, 2023. Six children and two adults were suspended inside a cable car dangling over a deep valley in Pakistan for several hours on August 22, as a military helicopter hovered nearby. (Photo by Prateek KUMAR / AFP) (Photo by PRATEEK KUMAR/AFP via Getty Images)

One of the school children, a boy aged 16, is believed to have a heart condition and fell unconscious while in the chair lift. A mobile phone being used to contact those on the ground by one of the passengers is now thought to have run out of battery.

Officials said the chair lift was “suspended by a single rope”. A rescue has been attempted twice, with a commando being lowered to the cable car on a rope from a helicopter. However, it has not yet been able to successfully reach the lift.

The temperatures in the region were around 33C.

"For God's sake help us," Gulfraz, a man stuck in the cable car, told Pakistan television channel Geo News by phone, confirming eight people were on board. "It has been nearly five hours since we are stuck mid-air. The situation is so bad that one man has already fainted."

It is understood water and some food items were delivered to the stranded people by the rescue team from the helicopter.

Anwaar ul Haq Kakar, the caretaker Pakistani prime minister, said he was "relieved" that all the children have been "safely and successfully rescued".

He added on X, formerly known as Twitter: "Great team work by the military, rescue departments, district administration as well as the local people."

The chair lift, which was built by a local man to help people access the village of Batangi, is in a village called Jangri, near Battagram, about 125 miles north of Islamabad. The trip between the two villages would take two hours on foot, but takes just four minutes in the chair lift.

Mr Kakar added he would launch a safety inspection of private chair lifts to “ensure that they are safe to operate and use”. Local chair lifts are common in the mountain regions of Pakistan to cross rivers and travel over valleys.

Some are made of scrap metal and parts of old vehicles and often do not actually consist of a proper chair or safety harness.

Zafar Iqbal, a school teacher, told local media the students were travelling to school.

“The chairlift is used to go from one place to another. In this area, 150 children come to school by chairlift,” he said, saying he had been told two wires of the cable car broke down mid-air.