Dramatic video shows tourists stranded after mountain cable car breaks down in India

All the cable car passengers were tourists from the capital Delhi

At least 15 people were left stranded mid-air after two cable cars stopped working due to a technical failure in India's mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh.

A rescue trolley was deployed to reach the stranded tourists, with dramatic videos from the scene showing the first two passengers being slowly lowered by rope to the valley floor.

“A total of 15 persons were stranded in two cable cars. Four people in the uphill trolly and 11 in the downhill trolly,” Onkar Chand Sharma, principal secretary of the Himachal Pradesh state government’s national disaster management agency, told news agency ANI.

All the passengers, believed to be tourists visiting from the capital Delhi, were rescued by Monday evening, officials said.

According to the authorities, a technical team of the Timber Trail cable car operator was deployed and the local police team monitored the situation.

A team from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) was also sent to the scene.

A video from inside the cable car showed the tourists being apprehensive about getting down with the help of ropes. "We can't go down with the help of rope. We are old. We won't be able to get down and the authorities have been unable to take any action," a woman passenger can be seen saying.

The ropeway is a popular tourist attraction in the Solan district, and part of the Timber Trail private resort.

Earlier in October 1992, 11 people had to be rescued by helicopters of the Indian Air Force after they got stuck on the same ropeway. In April, three people died after tourists were stuck in cable cars in Jharkhand state's Deoghar district for over 40 hours due to a technical snag.