In a statement, Carris also said that he immediately opened an investigation with the authorities to find out the causes of the city’s tourist accident
The Urban Transport Company Carris reported that it has fulfilled all the maintenance protocols of the Glory Elevator, the center cable car that derailed on Wednesday (3) and left 15 dead and 18 injured, five of them in serious condition. In a statement, Carris emphasized that “all protocols were fulfilled and respected”, both general maintenance, which occurs every four years and occurred for the last time in 2022, and the interleaved repair, which is performed every two years and occurred in 2024.
The company also stressed that “the monthly and weekly maintenance schedules and the daily inspection were scrupulously fulfilled.” The company said it opened an investigation with the authorities to find out the causes of the accident. Inaugurated in 1885, the famous binds to Praça dos Restauradores to Bairro Alto, in the heart of the tourist area of Lisbon.
Killed and injured
The victims of the derailment of the funicular were removed from the rubble of the accident, said Tiago Augusto, responsible for the medical emergency service (INEM), which added that among the affected people there were foreigners, although it could not precise their nationalities.
The accident, whose details are not yet known, occurred at 6:05 pm, near Avenida da Liberdade, when the wagon of the famous Gloria elevator, which connects Rossio Square to the localities of Bairro Alto and Prince Real, derails. A witness of the accident told the SIC channel that the vehicle had seen the vehicle “at all speed” the steep slope through which it circulates daily before colliding with a building. It is “a tragedy that had never happened in our city,” said Lisbon Mayor Carlos Coins shortly before emergency services confirmed the first 15 -kick swing.
National mourning
The government decreed a day of national mourning on Thursday and lamented the “tragic accident” that caused the “irreparable loss of human lives,” according to the text provided to Lusa by the office of Prime Minister Luís Montenegro. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also expressed in X her condolences to the families of the victims, ensuring that she was “sad” to learn of the accident.
Images released on social networks showed, in the midst of a cloud of smoke, a fully destroyed funicular against a wall, after apparently not turned the turn at the end of the street where he moved.
The Glory Elevator derailed and fell this Wednesday, next to Avenida da Liberdade, in Lisbon. According to Sapadors firefighters, the accident caused “many victims”, including serious injuries.
– Living World (@mundo__Vivo)
Learn more about momentum
According to the website of the national monuments, the Glory Elevator was built by the Franco-Portuguese engineer Raoul Mesnier du Ponsard and inaugurated in 1885. From 1915, it was moved by electricity. It is one of the three emblematic funicular in Lisbon. The vehicle, with a capacity of about forty passengers, is a transportation much appreciated by the numerous tourists visiting the Portuguese capital.
*With information from AFP and EFE
Posted by Carol Santos
