Fifteen individuals have been killed and 18 have been injured after a funicular streetcar derailed and crashed in Lisbon, Portugal, authorities mentioned Wednesday.
The crash happened on a well-liked streetcar line known as the Elevador da Glória, a landmark situated in central Lisbon and infrequently visited by vacationers. It opened in 1885.
5 of the injured are in critical situation, and a baby is among the many injured, the Nationwide Institute for Medical Emergencies mentioned in a press release. Officers haven’t launched the nationalities of the victims.
The reason for the crash stays unclear. Authorities known as it an accident, the worst within the metropolis’s current historical past.
Armando Franca / AP
Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas mentioned in a social media post that town “is in mourning.”
“The Lisbon Metropolis Council decrees three days of Municipal Mourning for the victims of the tragic accident on the Glória Funicular,” Moedas mentioned. “I lengthen my heartfelt condolences to all of the households and pals of the victims. Lisbon is in mourning.”
The yellow-and-white streetcar, which matches up and down a steep downtown hill in tandem with one going the alternative method, was mendacity on its facet on the slender highway that it travels alongside.
Its sides and prime have been partially crumpled, and it appeared to have crashed right into a constructing the place the highway bends. A number of dozen emergency staff have been on the scene, however most stood down after about two hours.
Eyewitnesses informed native media that the streetcar careened down the hill, apparently uncontrolled. Carris, the corporate that operates the streetcar, mentioned scheduled upkeep had been carried out.
Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s workplace said in a statement that the president “deeply regrets the accident” and expressed “his condolences and solidarity with the households affected by this tragedy.”
It is a creating story and will probably be up to date.
