A Taiwanese man who was airlifted off Uluru after being trapped on the rock for more than 24 hours is recovering in hospital.

The 27-year-old fell about 20 metres into a crevice high on Uluru on Thursday and spent the night with multiple limb fractures and head injuries.

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He was rescued in what police described as a slow and difficult process involving a helicopter and an abseiling operation.

The man is now stable and in a general ward in Alice Springs Hospital.

The climbing of Uluru, previously known as Ayer’s Rock, by tourists is a sensitive issue.

The local Indigenous people, the Anangu, ask that people do not climb Uluru, with a sign at the visitors’ centre stating: ‘That’s a really important sacred thing that you are climbing… You shouldn’t climb. It’s not the real thing about this place. The real thing is listening to everything. And maybe that makes you a bit sad. But anyway that’s what we have to say. We are obliged by Tjukurpa to say. And all the tourists will brighten up and say, ‘Oh I see. This is the right way. This is the thing that’s right. This is the proper way: no climbing’.

Tourists who decide to tackle the rock are warned the long and steep climb is strenuous, with a number of deaths recorded due to heart attack.

The climb is closed periodically due to bad weather or cultural reasons.