Lisbon funicular crash kills at least 15

A day of national mourning has been declared in Portugal after at least 15 people were killed when Lisbon’s well-known Gloria funicular railway car derailed and crashed on Wednesday, the Guardian reported.

An emergency services spokesperson said some foreign nationals were among the dead but would not identify the victims or disclose their nationalities. At least 18 people, including a child, were injured, five of them seriously.

Public prosecutors have launched an investigation into the cause of the disaster.

Footage showed the wreckage of the yellow and white car – which is known as Elevador da Glória and goes up and down a steep hill in central Lisbon in tandem with one going the opposite way – lying on its side in the narrow street it traverses.

Its sides and top were crumpled, and it appeared to have crashed into a building where the road bends. Parts of the vehicle, made mostly of metal, were crushed.

One witness said the streetcar toppled on to a man on the pavement.

The cause of the accident was not immediately known. It reportedly occurred at the start of the evening rush hour, at about 6pm. Emergency officials said all victims were pulled out of the wreckage in just over two hours.

SITRA, a trade union, wrote in a post on social media that one of its members had died in the incident.

“It’s a tragic day for our city … Lisbon is in mourning, it is a tragic, tragic incident,” Carlos Moedas, the mayor of the Portuguese capital, told reporters.