Presumption something went wrong with the braking systempublished at 21:25 British Summer Time
21:25 BST
Alison Roberts
Reporting from Lisbon
In the last hour or so, the ambulances have stopped arriving, and the people who were trapped inside the carriage of the funicular have been brought out.
The forensics team are now photographing the scene and parts of the Gloria Funicular.
We haven’t had official confirmation about what caused the accident – but at moment, the presumption is that something went wrong with the braking system, which would have involved the cable that runs under the surface of the steep road.
These funicular cabs move by gripping onto the cable – so if anything happened to that cable, it would be a very serious situation.
Tourism is central to Portugal’s economy, in particular Lisbon’s. The Portuguese are going to be very shocked by this because they want their foreign visitors to be safe. This will horrify people.
The system has been operating for almost 150 years, but clearly something went very wrong today.