Srinagar, June 25: Seven people, including a family of four from Delhi, were killed in the ski resort of Gulmarg when two cable cars from one of the highest ropeways in the world crashed on the rocks below after a wind-uprooted pine tree snapped the cable.

"The cable snapped, the cars smashed into rocks around 100ft below, and those inside were flung out. Those stuck in the other cars have been rescued," Nitish Kumar, the deputy inspector-general of police, north Kashmir, told The Telegraph.

Six tourists and a guide died in the accident. Over 150 people, mostly tourists, were stranded at various altitudes in the other cars of the Gulmarg Gondola ropeway.

They were buffeted by biting winds for over three hours from 1pm before the cable was repaired and the service resumed. The temperature in Gulmarg was around 8 degrees Celsius today.

Officials said this was the first accident at the Gulmarg Gondola since it was commissioned in 1998. The cable cars ascend from 8,694ft to 13,068ft.

The dead include Jayant Andraskar, an employee of the Pusa Institute of Technology in Delhi, his wife Manisha and their two daughters, Anagha and Jahnvi. They were residents of Shalimar Bagh in northwest Delhi and were to return tomorrow.

Manisha's brother Sourabh Wandhare said over the phone from Nagpur: "I spoke to her over the phone this morning. She told me they were enjoying the trip. She sounded very happy."

The three other dead have been identified as Mukhtar Ahmad, Jahangir Ahmad and Farooq Ahmad Chopan, all residents of Kashmir.

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah asked why the cable car service had not been suspended when the wind picked up pace.

"What terrible news," he tweeted. "It begs the question as to why the cable car operations weren't suspended in high winds. That's a laid-down SOP (standard operating procedure)."

The ropeway service is run by the J&K State Cable Car Corporation.