Military helicopters and zipline experts on Tuesday rescued eight people, including six school children, trapped for hours in a stricken cable car high above a remote Pakistan valley.

The daring rescue began with a helicopter plucking two children to safety after almost 12 hours in the air as daylight faded, but the chopper was forced back to base in the dark.

Then rescuers used the cable keeping the gondola from plunging into the valley as a zipline to rescue the rest of those stranded late into Tuesday night.

"The rescue operation has been completed. The two adults were the last to be rescued," Bilal Faizi, from the Pakistan emergency service Rescue 1122.

The military confirmed the rescue efforts had successfully concluded.

A video of the first rescue showed a teenager in a harness hanging at the bottom of a swinging rope under a helicopter as crowds cheered.

Rescuers set up a temporary camp on a mountaintop and were providing first aid, Faizi said.

The six children had been on their way to school when the chairlift broke down at around 7am (1000 HKT) midway through its journey, hanging up to 350 metres above the Allai valley.

Residents used mosque loudspeakers to alert neighbourhood officials and hundreds of people gathered to watch the drama unfold.

Several military helicopters had earlier in the day flown sorties and an airman was lowered by a harness to deliver food, water and medicine.

"Great team work by the military, rescue departments, district administration as well as the local people," caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar posted on X.

He earlier issued a directive for all chairlifts in mountainous areas to be inspected and for those that are not safe to be immediately closed.

Earlier in the day, as the rescue operation unfolded, headmaster Ali Asghar Khan told AFP by phone that the children were teenage boys and students at his government high school Battangi Pashto.

"The school is located in a mountainous area and there are no safe crossings, so it's common to use the chairlift," Khan said.

Cable cars that carry passengers -- and sometimes even cars -- are common across the northern areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Gilgit-Baltistan, and are vital in connecting villages and towns in areas where roads cannot be built.

In 2017, 10 people were killed when a chairlift cable broke, sending passengers plunging into a ravine in a mountain hamlet near the capital Islamabad. (AFP)
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Last updated: 2023-08-23 HKT 02:40