Two children were rescued, one by one, district official Shah Fahad and the military’s media said. Television footage showed one child being lifted off the cable car by a helicopter in a harness and then carried to the ground. An official had earlier said four children had been rescued.

The cable car became stranded halfway across a ravine, about 275 metres above ground, Shariq Riaz Khattak a rescue official at the site, told Reuters.

The helicopter rescue mission had been complicated by gusty winds in the area and the fact that the helicopters’ rotor blades risked further destabilising the lift, he said.

“Our situation is precarious, for god’s sake do something,” Gulfaraz, a 20-year-old on the cable car, told local television channel Geo News over the phone. He said the children were aged between 10 and 15 and one had fainted due to heat and fear.

The rescue effort has transfixed the country, with Pakistanis crowded around television sets, as local media showed footage of an emergency worker dangling from a helicopter cable close to the small cabin, with those onboard cramped together.

Crowds of villagers gathered on the hillside anxiously watching the operation.

Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul Haq Kakar said he was tracking progress of the rescue.

“Thanks to the efforts of our army personnel, students stuck in the chairlift have started returning to the ground safely,” Kakar said in a post on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Reuters