All passengers were rescued from a cable car in Pakistan

Pakistani security forces said yesterday that they had rescued eight people, including several young students, from a stranded cable car that was left hanging above a mountain valley.

The students, including children ages 10 to 15, were headed to a nearby school in Allai, in the Battagram district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, in the morning when two of the car’s wires broke. Panic gripped the passengers and their families, who issued urgent pleas for assistance.

A video clip posted on social media showed one person being lifted to safety by a rope attached to a helicopter. But as darkness fell, helicopter operations were suspended, and a zip-line was used instead to rescue those who were still trapped, according to the Pakistani military.

The cable car is a regular mode of transportation for residents of the mountainous northern region. Around 400 to 500 people use it for commuting every day. But such locally built lifts, typically powered by petrol or diesel engines, are privately owned and tend toward relatively ad hoc construction.