{"id":201184,"date":"2025-09-05T02:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/201184\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T02:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:52:11","slug":"what-to-know-about-the-lisbon-tourist-favorite-funicular-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/201184\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about the Lisbon tourist-favorite funicular crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

LISBON, Portugal (AP) \u2014 The derailment of a streetcar that is a popular tourist attraction in Portugal\u2019s capital killed 16 people and injured 21 others, emergency services said<\/a>. At least half the victims were foreigners.<\/p>\n

Officials called the accident one of Lisbon\u2019s worst tragedies in recent memory.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what to know:<\/p>\n

Investigations underway<\/p>\n

Official details about the crash<\/a> in downtown Lisbon were still scant Thursday morning. Authorities called the derailment on Wednesday an accident, and the government said that various official investigations were underway.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city needs answers,\u201d Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas said.<\/p>\n

Lisbon\u2019s Civil Protection Agency said early Thursday the death toll had risen to 17. It later corrected that to 16, saying there was a lapse because of the duplication of available information.<\/p>\n

Witnesses told local media that the streetcar appeared out of control as it careened down a hill at around 6 p.m. on Wednesday during the evening rush hour. One witness said that the streetcar toppled onto a man on a sidewalk.<\/p>\n

The sides and top of the yellow-and-white streetcar, known as Elevador da Gloria, were crumpled and it appeared to have crashed into a building where the road bends.<\/p>\n

Carris, the company that operates the streetcar, said that scheduled maintenance had been carried out.<\/p>\n

Officials declined to speculate on whether a faulty brake or a snapped cable may have caused the derailment.<\/p>\n

Many foreigners among the dead<\/p>\n

Portugal\u2019s attorney general\u2019s office said eight victims have been identified so far: five Portuguese, two South Koreans and a Swiss person.<\/p>\n

There is \u201ca high possibility\u201d that the victims also include two Canadians, one American, one German and one Ukrainian, according to the head of the national investigative police, Lu\u00eds Neves. Three remain to be identified.<\/p>\n

Among the injured are Spaniards, Israelis, Portuguese, Brazilians, Italians and French people, the executive director of Portugal\u2019s National Health Service, \u00c1lvaro Santos Almeida, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tragedy of the like we\u2019ve never seen,\u201d Moedas, the mayor, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis tragedy \u2026 goes beyond our borders,\u201d Prime Minister Lu\u00eds Montenegro said. <\/p>\n

National grieving<\/p>\n

Portugal was observing a day of national mourning on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA tragic accident \u2026 caused the irreparable loss of human life, which left in mourning their families and dismayed the whole country,\u201d the government said in a statement.<\/p>\n

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also sent her condolences.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is with sadness that I learned of the derailment of the famous Elevador da Gloria,\u201d she wrote in Portuguese on the social platform X.<\/p>\n

140 years of service<\/p>\n

The streetcar, technically called a funicular, is harnessed by steel cables, with the descending car helping with its weight to pull up the other one. It can carry more than 40 people, seated and standing. The service, up and down a hill on a curved, traffic-free road, was inaugurated in 1885.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s classified as a national monument.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LISBON, Portugal (AP) \u2014 The derailment of a streetcar that is a popular tourist attraction in Portugal\u2019s capital…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":201185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,109941,57,109937,50,80,124,111289,3660,2856,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-201184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-carlos-moedas","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-lisbon","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-portugal","15":"tag-portugal-government","16":"tag-ukraine-government","17":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","18":"tag-world","19":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115149429468974026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}