Seven students and an instructor had been trapped in the cable car since 7 a. m. (0200 GMT) on their way to school in a remote mountain domain of Battagram, about two hundred kilometers (125 miles) north of Islamabad, officials said.
Two children have been rescued, according to a spokesman for a relief company and a district official. No further details were available.
The cable car was trapped in the middle of a ravine, about 274 meters (900 feet) above the ground, and hanging from a single cable after the other broke, Shariq Riaz Khattak, a rescue official at the scene, told Reuters.
The rescue project is confusing because of strong winds in the area and the fact that helicopter rotor blades can further destabilize the elevator, he said.
“Our scenario is precarious, for God’s sake, let’s do something,” Gulfaraz, a 20-year-old aboard the cable car, told local Geo News television, calling on the government to rescue them as soon as possible. The other scholars were between 10 and 15 years old and one of them fainted from the heat and fear.
The rescue efforts stunned the country, with Pakistanis huddled around televisions, while local media showed footage of a rescuer hanging from a helicopter cable near the small cabin, with other people on board huddled against each other.
There, crowds of villagers piled up on the vertiginous hillside, anxiously watching the operation.
Muzaffar Khan, an official with the Battagram district administration, said there were seven academics and one instructor on board, updating the six academics and two instructors briefed in the past.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)