LISBON, Portugal (AP) — The derailment of a streetcar that is a popular tourist attraction in Portugal’s capital killed 16 people and injured 21 others, emergency services said. At least half the victims were foreigners.
Officials called the accident one of Lisbon’s worst tragedies in recent memory.
Here’s what to know:
Investigations underway
Official details about the crash in downtown Lisbon were still scant Thursday morning. Authorities called the derailment on Wednesday an accident, and the government said that various official investigations were underway.
“The city needs answers,” Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas said.
Lisbon’s Civil Protection Agency said early Thursday the death toll had risen to 17. It later corrected that to 16, saying there was a lapse because of the duplication of available information.
Witnesses told local media that the streetcar appeared out of control as it careened down a hill at around 6 p.m. on Wednesday during the evening rush hour. One witness said that the streetcar toppled onto a man on a sidewalk.
The sides and top of the yellow-and-white streetcar, known as Elevador da Gloria, were crumpled and it appeared to have crashed into a building where the road bends.
Carris, the company that operates the streetcar, said that scheduled maintenance had been carried out.
Officials declined to speculate on whether a faulty brake or a snapped cable may have caused the derailment.
Many foreigners among the dead
Portugal’s attorney general’s office said eight victims have been identified so far: five Portuguese, two South Koreans and a Swiss person.
There is “a high possibility” that the victims also include two Canadians, one American, one German and one Ukrainian, according to the head of the national investigative police, Luís Neves. Three remain to be identified.
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.
“It’s a tragedy of the like we’ve never seen,” Moedas, the mayor, said.
“This tragedy … goes beyond our borders,” Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said.
National grieving
Portugal was observing a day of national mourning on Thursday.
“A tragic accident … caused the irreparable loss of human life, which left in mourning their families and dismayed the whole country,” the government said in a statement.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also sent her condolences.
“It is with sadness that I learned of the derailment of the famous Elevador da Gloria,” she wrote in Portuguese on the social platform X.
140 years of service
The streetcar, technically called a funicular, is harnessed by steel cables, with the descending car helping with its weight to pull up the other one. It can carry more than 40 people, seated and standing. The service, up and down a hill on a curved, traffic-free road, was inaugurated in 1885.
It’s classified as a national monument.
