A day of national mourning has been declared in Portugal after at least 17 people were killed when Lisbon’s well-known Gloria funicular railway car derailed and crashed on Wednesday.
An emergency services spokesperson said some foreign nationals were among the dead. At least 21 people, including a child, were injured, seven of them seriously.
The nationalities of the dead have not yet been revealed as efforts to contact family are still under way, Margarida Castro Martins, director of Lisbon civil protection agency, told reporters on Thursday. All of those killed in the incident were adults.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said it was not aware of any Irish citizens affected.
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“The Embassy of Ireland, Lisbon, is monitoring the situation closely and stands ready to provide consular assistance,” she said.
No Irish were among the hospitalised. The injured included a number of Portuguese in addition to German, Spanish, Korean, Cape Verdean, Canadian, Italian, French, Swiss and Moroccan nationals.
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Ms Castro Martins said psychological support had been offered to survivors. Other funicular railways in Lisbon have been halted for safety checks.
Simon Harris, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said he was “deeply saddened” by the reports. “This is a terrible day for the city and my thoughts, and those of people across Ireland, are with the families of people who have lost their lives,” he said.
More than 800,000 Irish people travel to Portugal each year, with 4,000 expatriates living in the country, according to Department of Foreign Affairs data.
Public prosecutors have opened an investigation into the cause of the disaster.
Footage showed the wreckage of the yellow-and-white car – which is known as Elevador da Glória and goes up and down a steep hill in central Lisbon in tandem with one going the opposite way – lying on its side in the narrow street it traverses.
Its sides and top were crumpled, and it appeared to have crashed into a building where the road bends. Parts of the vehicle, made mostly of metal, were crushed.
Witnesses told local media that the streetcar careened down the hill, apparently out of control. “It hit the building with brutal force and fell apart like a cardboard box,” Teresa d’Avó told Portuguese TV channel SIC.
One witness said the streetcar toppled on to a man on the pavement.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known. It reportedly occurred at the start of the evening rush hour, at about 6pm. Emergency officials said all victims were pulled out of the wreckage in just over two hours.
SITRA, a trade union, wrote in a post on social media that one of its members had died in the incident.
“It’s a tragic day for our city ... Lisbon is in mourning, it is a tragic, tragic incident,” Carlos Moedas, the mayor of the Portuguese capital, told reporters.
Portugal’s government declared that Thursday would be a day of national mourning. A statement from the office of prime minister Luis Montenegro said the tragedy “has brought grief to ... families and dismay to the country”.
Police investigators were inspecting the site and the prosecutor general’s office said it would open a formal investigation, as is customary in public transport incidents.
In a statement the president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, lamented the crash and expressed hope that authorities would soon establish the cause.
The line, which opened in 1885 and is classified as a national monument, connects the central Lisbon area near the Restauradores Square with the Bairro Alto (Upper Quarter), known for its vibrant nightlife.
It is one of three funicular lines operated by the municipal public transport company Carris and is used by tourists as well as residents.
Carris said in a statement that “all maintenance protocols have been carried out”, including monthly and weekly maintenance programmes and daily inspections.
Lisbon’s city council suspended operations of other streetcars in the city and ordered immediate inspections, local media reported.
The Gloria line transports about three million people annually, according to the town hall.
Its two cars, each capable of carrying about 40 people, are attached to opposite ends of a haulage cable with traction provided by electric motors on the cars.
The car at the bottom of the line was apparently undamaged, but video from bystanders broadcast by CNN Portugal showed it jolting violently when the other one derailed and several passengers jumping out of its windows and people shouting.
Portugal, and Lisbon in particular, has experienced a tourism boom in the past decade, with visitors cramming into the popular downtown area in the summer months.
– Additional reporting by Guardian/agencies
