Lisbon has dawned on Thursday still shocked by derailing a funicular that caused the death of 17 people and wounds to twenty, including two of Spanish nationality, who have already received hospital discharge. “He crashed with a brutal force in a building and got rid of like a cardboard box, he had no brake,” said a witness from the sic chain. The woman observed transporting “unbridled” by the pronounced costs where it circulates to collide against a property.
Among the deceased is the funicular bodyguards, André Jorge Gonçalves Marques. Another victims is the father of a child under three, who was rescued by a policeman and transferred to the hospital. The child’s mother also remains admitted with serious injuries. The family is of German nationality.
The event has led the Lisbon City Council to suspend the service of three historical funicular of characteristics similar to the accident, which are one of the great tourist attractions of the city. That they save great slopes, they are interrupted at the moment by decision of the City Council of Lisbon, which has decreed three days of official mourning. This Thursday the institutional duel extends to the entire country.
The Prosecutor’s Office, meanwhile, has opened an investigation to clarify what happened. The first hypothesis shuffled by the local press points towards the breakage of a transport safety cable that descended the Gloria Calzada.
The funicular of the glory, where the accident was recorded after 18.00 on Wednesday, connects the Plaza de los Restauradores, in the lower part of the Portuguese capital, with the Alto neighborhood. It began operating in 1885 and was electrified at the beginning of the XX. mostly tourists, who want to know one of the historical means of transport of the Portuguese capital.
The popular yellow trams and funicular carriages constitute one of the most photographed and requested by visitors.
The accident occurred at 18.05 (one more hour in peninsular Spain) near the start of the journey, near the Plaza de los Restauradores, due to the breakage of a security cable, which would have caused the lack of control of the vehicle and its accelerated descent by the slope that joins the high zone with the Pombalina Baixa. The funicular became a knead of scrap after ramming a building in the Gloria Calzada.
The incident also affected the second funicular that provides this service, which was detained at the beginning of the Glory road with some passengers inside and that was displaced a few meters when the safety cable of the vehicle that descended was broken.
The injured were transferred to three hospitals in Lisbon (Santa María, San José and San Francisco Javier) and other health centers of nearby towns such as Cascais. These media indicated that seven of them were in serious condition.
