Eight people, including six children, were stranded Tuesday in a home-made cable car suspended high up in a remote mountainous region in northwestern Pakistan, official sources said.
The children were using the cabin to get to school when it got stuck about 1,200 feet (365 m) above sea level because one of the cables that served them stopped working.
“The gondola is suspended from a simple rope. Inside are at least eight inmates, mostly school children,” Abdul Basit Khan, a senior emergency services official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told AFP.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said in a statement that there were six children and two adults on board the cabin and the military had been ordered to conduct a rescue operation.
“We have asked the (provincial) government to provide a helicopter as the rescue operation is not possible without the help of a helicopter,” said Syed Hammad Haider, another senior provincial official.