An American and two Canadians are feared to be among at least 17 dead in a horror tram crash in Portugal’s capital city of Lisbon.
Authorities have not yet released the identities of all of the victims in the tragedy in Lisbon on Wednesday, but said there was a ‘high degree of certainty’ that the American and two Canadians were deceased.
As of Thursday, the only person who has been identified as a fatality of the crash André Jorge Gonçalves Marques, a brakeman for the tram.
A Ukrainian and a German national were also among the dead, with survivors saying the city’s iconic Elevador da Glória funicular derailed and slammed into a hotel corner building as it made its descent towards the city centre.
Lisbon resident Abel Esteves, 75, and his wife and grandson were among 40 passengers in a separate tram just below the one that derailed, and described the horror scenes as it flew off the tracks.
‘I told my wife: ‘We’re all going to die here’,’ he said. ‘It picked up a brutal speed, took a slight turn and hit the building with a loud bang.’
Thirty-eight people were also hurt in the disaster, with 15 killed at the scene and another victim dying in hospital later on Wednesday night.
Lisbon’s director of emergency services, Margarida Martins, said among the injured were four Portuguese, two Germans, two Spanish, one Korean, one Cape Verdean, one Canadian, one Italian, one French citizen, one Swiss and one Moroccan.
Fabiana Pavel, president of the Bairro Alto Residents’ Association, told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today Programme that the crash could have been due to ‘excessive tourism’ – a growing concern across southern Europe as locals are priced out of homes and economies become more dependent on foreign visitors.
‘The use of it in recent years is certainly inappropriate,’ she said, explaining locals were often unable to use the railway ‘because it became a tourist attraction’.
An American and two Canadians are feared to be among at least 16 dead in a horror crash after Lisbon’s Elevador da Glória funicular derailed and slammed into a hotel corner building
Andre Jorge Goncalves Marques was among the victims of Wednesday’s tragic incident
Witnesses said the first signs of trouble came at the bottom of the hill that the tram operated on, around 850ft from where it derailed.
The opposite cable car suddenly shunted, witnesses said, then unaware of the impending tragedy at the other end.
Near the top of the hill, as Lisbon’s rush hour swarmed with commuters and visitors alike, a busy streetcar carrying families and tourists began its descent – only for a fault with its cables to occur.
Despite having gone through a full maintenance service, albeit a year ago, the car was left without brakes on a treacherous 17.7% steep slope separating the Bairro Alto nightlife district from the city centre.
The vehicle began to careen down its course before coming off the tracks just after 6pm as it reached a sharp bend near the bottom.
The speeding cable car overshot the turn, flipping on to its side and smashing into building, causing the carriage to ‘fall apart like a cardboard box’, as one witness described it.
A police officer walks past the remains of wrecked Gloria funicular at derail site, September 3
Police and firefighters work on the site of a funicular railway accident in Lisbon, September 3
Smoke plumed into the street as locals rushed to the scene to help passengers from the wreckage. Fifteen were initially counted among the dead, and nearly two dozen rushed to hospital. Two people, sadly, died in the night.
Residents told local outlets that the railway is popular with tourists at this time of year, and often overcrowded. The victims, including some foreign nationals, have all been recovered from the wreckage, according to the emergency services.
Among them was a three-year-old German toddler, who – it emerged on Thursday – was pulled from the wreckage as his father lay dying beside him and his mother remained trapped with a broken spine.
As well as excessive tourism being blamed by locals, Manuel Leal, leader of the Fectrans union, told local outlets that workers on the tram had complained that they had encountered problems with the tension of the cable that hauls the carriages.
While saying that it was too early to say if this was the direct cause of the derailment, he said workers had noted the instability for some time before the disaster.
The municipal transport company Carris said in a statement that ‘all maintenance protocols have been carried out’, including monthly and weekly maintenance and daily inspections.
‘On Wednesday morning, the inspection was carried out and no faults were detected… We cannot assume that the problem was with the cable. The investigation will determine the cause,’ Carris CEO Pedro Bogas told reporters.
