LAHORE - Military helicopters and ziplining commandos rescued eight people, including six schoolboys, who were trapped for hours on Tuesday in a stricken cable car high above a remote Pakistani valley.
The daring rescue began with a helicopter plucking a child to safety after almost 12 hours, but it was forced back to base as bad weather closed in and night fell.
Then, commandos from Pakistan's Special Service Group (SSG) -- known as the Maroon Berets -- used the cable keeping the gondola from plunging into the valley as a zipline to rescue the rest of those stranded.
Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar called the rescuers "heroes of the nation".
"Great team work by the military, rescue departments, district administration as well as the local people," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Local officials earlier said two children had been plucked by helicopter from the stricken gondola, but the military later confirmed only one had been rescued that way.
"After tireless efforts by highly skilled pilots and SSG personnel, a child was rescued but the mission had to be canceled due to bad weather," the military's media wing said in a statement.
"Further efforts were then made by the SSG troops and a special zipliner team for this purpose was flown to the crash site by army helicopters."
Bilal Faizi, an official with Pakistan's emergency service, said the two adults were the last to be brought to safety.
The six children had been on their way to school accompanied by two adults when the chairlift broke down at around 7am midway through its journey above the lush green Allai Valley.