A ski lift has collapsed at a Spanish resort, injuring dozens of people, nine of them very seriously and eight seriously, the regional government has said.

Around 80 people remained trapped, hanging in the chairlift at the ski resort of Astún, in the region of Aragon, according to the state TV channel TVE.

“It’s like a cable has come off, the chairs have bounced and people have been thrown off,” one witness told TVE.

The cause of the cable failure remains unknown. Images and video footage on social media appeared to show people lying on the snow under the lift.

The ski resort’s management declined to comment and were not immediately able to say if foreign nationals were among the injured.

Several helicopters had been deployed to rescue skiers who were still trapped on the chairlift and to transfer the injured to nearby hospitals.

Spain’s Guardia Civil shared a video of a helicopter flying past the scene before landing with emergency workers to help the rescue effort.

Dozens of people were still hanging from the 15 metre-high chairlift, reported one of Spain’s public broadcasters.

The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said he was shocked by the reports. “All our affection to the injured and their families,” he added in a post on X.

One witness, Jamie Pelegri, said on social media that the Canal Roya chairlift was the one that had collapsed.

“Luckily we are fine but there are injured people, we have seen several stretchers coming down,” he said.

The region’s president, Jorge Azcón, was travelling to the resort.

Azcón wrote on X: “All the necessary services of the [government] are working to assist the affected and injured people.”

The Astún ski resort, mainly popular among Spanish skiers, is close to the Spanish border with France, in the Pyrenees mountain range.