Seven children and one teacher became stuck in the cable car when a line snapped at around 7am local time as they were travelling to school in a remote mountainous area in Battagram, about 200km north of Islamabad, officials said.

Four children had been rescued, one by one, district official Shah Fahad said. A rescue agency spokesman and a district official told Reuters earlier that two children had been pulled out.

Television footage showed one child being lifted off the cable car by a helicopter in a harness and then carried to the ground.

The cable car became stranded halfway across a ravine, about 275m above ground, and was dangling by a single cable after the other snapped, Shariq Riaz Khattak a rescue official at the site, told Reuters.

The rescue mission was complicated due to gusty winds in the area and the helicopters’ rotor blades risk further destabilising of the lift, he said. It was also getting dark.

“Our situation is precarious, for God’s sake do something,” Gulfaraz, a 20-year-old on the cable car, told local television channel Geo News over the phone, appealing to authorities to rescue them as soon as possible. He said the children were aged between 10 and 15 and one had fainted due to heat and fear.

The rescue effort has transfixed the country, with Pakistanis crowded around television sets, as local media showed footage of an emergency worker dangling from a helicopter cable close to the small cabin, with those onboard cramped together.

Crowds of villagers gathered on the hillside anxiously watching the operation.

Muzaffar Khan, a district administration official in Battagram, said there were seven students and one teacher aboard, updating from the earlier reported six students and two teachers.