Portugal’s prime minister says the funicular crash which killed at least 16 people in Lisbon is the “greatest tragedy” and says they “need answers”, as ITV News’ Leyla Hayes reports
The mayor of Lisbon has said accountability is needed after a carriage of the city’s iconic Elevador da Gloria funicular crashed into a building on Wednesday and killed 16 people.
All funiculars in the Portuguese capital have been temporarily shut down as investigations are carried out following the derailment, which left 21 others from at least ten other countries wounded.
Portugal’s attorney-general’s office said eight victims have been identified so far, five Portuguese, two South Koreans and a Swiss person.
Among the injured are Spaniards, Israelis, Portuguese, Brazilians, Italians and French people, the executive director of Portugal’s National Health Service, Álvaro Santos Almeida, said.
“My concern lies with the victims, those injured in hospital, the families who lost their loved ones,” Mayor Carlos Moedas told a press conference on Thursday.
“There are no words for such pain. At this moment, our priority is to support the families, and I would like to guarantee that the company will fully support the families.
“At this moment we are gathering all information to ascertain who is responsible. Anything that may be said right now is pure speculation.
“The city needs answers. I am, in the name of Lisbon residents, the first person to want everything to be investigated.”
Modeas said he has asked the president of Carris, the public transport company that operates the funicular, to “open an internal and an external independent investigation to ascertain responsibility in the shortest space of time”.
A national day of mourning has been declared across Portugal, while the city of Lisbon has declared three days of mourning.
Portuguese prime minister Luis Montenegro told the conference that the crash was “one of the greatest human tragedies in our recent history”.
Addressing the victims and families, he said: “In this time of grief no words will be enough to ease your loss, nor to fill the void that has been created by those who have passed away.
“But I want you to know, on behalf of the Portuguese state, that you are not alone and that the entire country shares your grief. We are facing a moment that demands solidarity and unity from all of us.”
Lisbon’s Civil Protection Agency said early on Thursday the death toll had risen to 17. It was later corrected to 16, saying there was a lapse because of the duplication of available information.
As more details on the incident emerged, Portuguese transport workers’ trade union SITRA said the streetcar’s brakeman, André Marques, was among the dead.
In a Facebook post, Carris paid tribute to Mr Marques, praising him for his “loyalty and dedication”, having spent 15 years working for the company.
“His valour and professionalism, recognised by all, came to a tragic end with the loss of his life,” the company added.
“It is with deep sadness that we express our pain and sorrow to the family and friends of André Marques. We repeat our deepest condolences.”
The 19th-century funicular is one of Lisbon’s big tourist attractions and is usually packed with foreigners at this time of year for its short and picturesque trip up and down one of the city’s steep hills.
Teams of pathologists at the National Forensics Institute, reinforced by colleagues from three other Portuguese cities, worked through the night on autopsies, officials said. The injured were admitted to several hospitals in the Lisbon region.
Just as the evening rush hour was starting, one of its two cars derailed at around 6pm local time and plummeted down the street before crashing into a building at a bend in the road, local media reported.
Footage showed frantic rescue efforts as some passengers were pulled from one of the destroyed cars while others clambered through the windows of another further down the track amid heavy smoke.
A three-year-old boy from Germany was pulled from the debris by a police officer, according to CNN Portugal, which reports the child’s father died and his mother remains in a critical condition.
Officials declined to speculate on the cause of the derailment.
However, the Lisbon Firefighters Regiment reported that a cable detached along the line, causing the funicular to lose control, according to Portuguese newspaper Observador.
The famous yellow-and-white streetcar was pictured lying on its side on the narrow road it travels on, with its sides and top crumpled, on Thursday morning.
Detectives from Portugal’s judicial police force, which investigates serious incidents, were seen photographing the rails and the wreckage on the deserted road.
“It hit the building with brutal force and fell apart like a cardboard box,” witness Teresa d’Avó told Portuguese television channel SIC.
She described the streetcar as out of control and seeming to have no brakes, and said she watched passersby run into the middle of the nearby Avenida da Liberdade, or Freedom Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare.
One woman described seeing one of the carriages hurtling down the hill “at full speed” with “no brakes,” according to ITV News’ American partner CNN.
Another witness told local media that the streetcar toppled onto a man on the pavement.
Felicity Ferriter, a 70-year-old British tourist, had just arrived with her husband at a nearby hotel and was unpacking her suitcase when she heard “a horrendous crash”.
Explaining how the couple planned on riding the streetcar the next day, she said: “It was to be one of the highlights of our holiday… It could have been us.”
The yellow-and-white streetcar, known as Elevador da Gloria, was lying on its side on the narrow road that it travels on, its sides and top crumpled.
Lisbon’s funicular railway, inaugurated in 1885, sees two carriages harnessed by steel cables going up and down a few hundred meters of a hill on a curved, traffic-free road in tandem – each going the opposite way and working as counterweights to each other.
The Elevador da Gloria, which goes between Restauradores Square and the Bairro Alto neighbourhood, is classified as a national monument.
Lisbon hosted around 8.5 million tourists last year, and long lines of people typically form for the brief rides on the popular streetcar.
European Union flags at the European Parliament and European Commission in Brussels flew at half-mast, while multiple EU leaders expressed their condolences on social media.
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