Watch helicopters and mountain rescue teams evacuate skiers stuck on broken chairlift in Austria

About three helicopters and several mountain aid groups were involved in the rescue of around 150 skiers who were stuck on a broken chairlift in central Austria for several hours on Monday (29 January).

The Styria provincial police said on Twitter that all the skiers who were taken off the Rosenkranz chairlift at Kreischberg Mountain north of Klagenfurt were safe and uninjured.

"Due to a technical defect we had to stop the double chair lift in the area of Rosenkranz today in the afternoon at about 2.30pm," Karl Fussi, a spokesperson form the Kreischberg ski resort in Austria said.

According to local media, the repair of the broken chairlift would have taken very long and so the authorities decided to start the evacuation of the skiers, CBS News reported.

The skiers were informed about the issue in several languages by the authorities with the use of loudspeakers.

Some skiers were brought down with the help of the rescue team who had climbed up to the chairs from below, while others were lifted up onto helicopters.

"At 5 o'clock all of the skiers were safe on the ground. Nobody was injured so we were quite happy that we were successful," Fussi said according to ABC News website.

According to reports, the chairs that were stopped were about 7 to 10m (23ft-33ft) above the ground and the weather was also said to be comparatively mild.