LISBON (Reuters) -Flags flew at half-mast in Lisbon on Thursday after at least 16 people were killed in a crash of a hillside funicular railway popular with tourists, and the remaining two lines were shut as Portuguese authorities investigated the cause of the accident.
Twenty-three people were injured, and one of them died during the night, the Sao Jose hospital said.
Footage from the site showed the destroyed yellow tram-like funicular, which carries people up and down a steep hillside in the Portuguese capital, lying where it had left the track and hit a building.
Eliane Chaves, a Brazilian who has lived in Lisbon for 20 years, said she walked past the funicular every day.
“National mourning has been declared. It is truly sad,” she said. “People say that it was negligence but it was not negligence. They supervise it thoroughly. It was an accident, just like a plane or car accident can happen.”
Manuel Leal, leader of the Fectrans union, told local TV that workers on the Gloria railway – one of the symbols of the city – had complained about problems with the funicular’s haulage cable tension that made braking difficult, but it was too early to say if that was the cause of the crash.The municipal public transport company Carris said in a statement that “all maintenance protocols have been carried out”, including monthly and weekly maintenance programmes and daily inspections.
The line’s two cars, each capable of carrying around 40 people, are attached to opposite ends of a haulage cable with traction provided by electric motors on the cars that counterbalance each other.
As the cable apparently snapped, the car that was coming down the 265-metre slope lost its braking and derailed on a turn, crashing into a corner building.
The car at the bottom of the line jolted back a couple of metres (yards) and was apparently undamaged, but video from bystanders showed several passengers jumping out of its windows.
The line, which opened in 1885, connects Lisbon’s downtown area near the Restauradores Square with the Bairro Alto, or Upper Quarter, famous for its vibrant nightlife.
The Gloria line transports around 3 million people annually, according to the town hall.
Authorities did not identify the victims or disclose their nationalities, but said some foreign nationals were among the dead.
Some local media reported that a German family-of-three was among the victims, including a three-year-old child who suffered minor injuries, while the father died and the mother was seriously hurt.
Portugal, and Lisbon in particular, has experienced a tourism boom in the past decade, with visitors cramming the popular downtown area in the summer months.
(Reporting by Andrei Khalip, Inti Landauro, Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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