Pakistan cable car: 6 children, 2 adults rescued using makeshift chairlift, helicopters

Officials have rescued eight people, including six children, from a cable car hundreds of feet above the ground in Pakistan Tuesday using helicopters and a makeshift chairlift, authorities said.

The people on board the cable car were crossing a river canyon in Battagram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when one of the cables snapped, The Associated Press reported. 

The occupants were about 1,150 feet above ground, Taimoor Khan, a spokesman for the disaster management authority, said.

Rescuers used one of the cables that was still intact to rescue the occupants with the chairlift because helicopters could not fly after sunset, AP reported. The eight people were trapped in the cable car for more than 12 hours.

“Everyone was praying for this moment,” Nazir Ahmed, a senior police officer, said.

People on board cable cars die, get injured every year in Pakistan

Villagers often use cable cars to get to places around Pakistan’s mountainous regions, including schools, government offices and businesses. Every year people are killed or are injured while traveling on cable cars because they are often poorly maintained.

In 2017, 10 people died after a cable car fell hundreds of feet into a ravine in the mountain resort of Murree.

Contributing: The Associated Press