No less than 15 folks had been killed and 18 had been injured after a funicular streetcar derailed and crashed in Lisbon, Portugal, authorities mentioned Wednesday.
The crash occurred on a preferred streetcar line referred to as the Elevador da Glória, a landmark positioned in central Lisbon and sometimes visited by vacationers. It opened in 1885.
5 of the injured are in critical situation, and a toddler is among the many injured, the Nationwide Institute for Medical Emergencies mentioned in an announcement. Officers haven’t launched the nationalities of all of the victims. The State Division on Thursday confirmed {that a} U.S. citizen was amongst these killed within the derailment.
The reason for the crash stays unclear. Authorities referred to 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 submit that the 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 associates of the victims. Lisbon is in mourning.”
The yellow-and-white streetcar, which works up and down a steep downtown hill in tandem with one going the other method, was mendacity on its aspect on the slim street that it travels alongside.
Its sides and high had been partially crumpled, and it appeared to have crashed right into a constructing the place the street bends. A number of dozen emergency employees had been on the scene, however most stood down after about two hours.
Eyewitnesses instructed 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 mentioned in an announcement that the president “deeply regrets the accident” and expressed “his condolences and solidarity with the households affected by this tragedy.”
It is a growing story and shall be up to date.
