{"id":119171,"date":"2025-09-04T11:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T11:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/119171\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T11:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T11:32:07","slug":"portugal-observes-national-day-of-mourning-after-lisbon-streetcar-crash-kills-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/119171\/","title":{"rendered":"Portugal observes national day of mourning after Lisbon streetcar crash kills 17"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Police officers inspect the site where a tourist streetcar derailed and crashed in Lisbon, marking the country’s worst disaster in recent history.Armando Franca\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

The death toll in the crash of a famous Lisbon streetcar popular with tourists rose to 17 Thursday after two of the 23 injured people died, an emergency services official said.<\/p>\n

The dead were all adults, Margarida Castro Martins, head of Lisbon\u2019s Civil Protection Agency, told reporters. She didn\u2019t provide their names or nationalities, saying that their families would be informed first.<\/p>\n

Another 21 people were injured in Wednesday\u2019s crash, she said. They included Portuguese people as well as two Germans, two Spaniards and one person each from France, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Morocco, South Korea and Cape Verde, she said.<\/p>\n

The range of nationalities reflected how big a draw the renowned streetcar was for tourists who are packing the Portuguese capital during the summer season.<\/p>\n

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Detectives from Portugal\u2019s judicial police force, which investigates serious incidents, photographed the wreckage.PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Portugal observed a national day of mourning Thursday after the capital\u2019s worst disaster in recent history.<\/p>\n

Though authorities gave no details about those killed, the transport workers\u2019 trade union SITRA said that the streetcar\u2019s brakeman, Andr\u00e9 Marques, was among the dead.<\/p>\n

The 19th-century streetcar is one of Lisbon\u2019s big tourist attractions and is usually packed with foreigners at this time of year for its short and picturesque trip up and down one of the city\u2019s steep hills.<\/p>\n

Teams of pathologists at the National Forensics Institute, reinforced by colleagues from three other Portuguese cities, worked through the night on autopsies, officials said. The injured were admitted to several hospitals in the Lisbon region.<\/p>\n

The streetcar\u2019s crumpled wreckage was still on the downtown road where it crashed Thursday, cordoned off by police.<\/p>\n

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The streetcar is one of Lisbon\u2019s big tourist attractions and is usually packed with foreigners at this time of year.Armando Franca\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Detectives from Portugal\u2019s judicial police force, which investigates serious incidents, photographed the rails and the wreckage on the deserted road.<\/p>\n

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

The yellow-and-white streetcar, known as Elevador da Gloria, was lying on its side on the narrow road that it travels on, its sides and top crumpled. It crashed into a building where the road bends, leaving parts of the mostly metal vehicle crushed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hit the building with brutal force and fell apart like a cardboard box,\u201d witness Teresa d\u2019Av\u00f3 told Portuguese television channel SIC. She described the streetcar as out of control and seeming to have no brakes, and said she watched passersby run into the middle of the nearby Avenida da Liberdade, or Freedom Avenue, the city\u2019s main thoroughfare.<\/p>\n

The crash occurred at the start of the evening rush hour, around 6 p.m. local time. Emergency officials said all victims were pulled out of the wreckage in just over two hours.<\/p>\n

The streetcar, technically called a funicular, is harnessed by steel cables and can carry more than 40 people, seated and standing. It is also commonly used by Lisbon residents.<\/p>\n

The service, inaugurated in 1885, goes up and down a few hundred meters of a hill on a curved, traffic-free road in tandem with one going the opposite way. It goes between between Restauradores Square and the Bairro Alto neighborhood renowned for its nightlife.<\/p>\n

Lisbon\u2019s City Council halted operations of three other famous funicular streetcars in the city while immediate inspections were carried out.<\/p>\n

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Lisbon hosted around 8.5 million tourists last year, and long lines of people typically form for the brief rides on the popular streetcar.PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Elevador da Gloria is classified as a national monument.<\/p>\n

Lisbon hosted around 8.5 million tourists last year, and long lines of people typically form for the brief rides on the popular streetcar.<\/p>\n

Carris, the company that operates the streetcar, said that scheduled maintenance had been carried out. It offered its deepest condolences to the victims and their families in a social media post, and promised that all due diligence would be taken in finding the causes.<\/p>\n

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa offered his condolences to affected families, and Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas said the city was in mourning. \u201cIt\u2019s a tragedy of the like we\u2019ve never seen,\u201d Moedas said.<\/p>\n

Portugal\u2019s government announced that a day of national mourning would be observed 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 it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

European Union flags at the European Parliament and European Commission in Brussels flew at half-staff. Multiple EU leaders expressed their condolences on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Police officers inspect the site where a tourist streetcar derailed and crashed in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-119171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}