Two Canadians and an American were among the victims of a deadly crash in Lisbon on Tuesday evening, when the city’s historic Gloria Funicular derailed, killing at least 17 people and injuring 38 others, including a child, according to Portuguese emergency services.Portugal’s emergency medical authority reported that five of the injured remain in serious condition, while 13 sustained minor wounds. Fifteen people died at the scene, while another victim succumbed to injuries later in hospital. Officials said all those trapped at the site have since been rescued.The crash occurred at around 18:05 local time near Avenida da Liberdade. Sixty-two emergency service personnel and 22 vehicles were deployed to the site. Images from the scene show emergency responders working among wreckage piled along the street and the area cordoned off by police..Authorities have not yet released the full list of victims, but said there is a “high degree of certainty” that an American and two Canadians were among the dead. A Ukrainian and a German national were also killed. As of Thursday, the only person officially identified as a fatality is André Jorge Gonçalves Marques, a brakeman for the tram.Lisbon’s director of emergency services, Margarida Martins, confirmed that the injured include four Portuguese nationals, two Germans, two Spanish citizens, one Korean, one Cape Verdean, one Canadian, one Italian, one French citizen, one Swiss, and one Moroccan.Local newspaper Observador reported that a cable may have come loose along the railway, leading the carriage to lose control before colliding with a nearby building. Officials stressed it is too early to confirm this theory..Eyewitness Teresa d’Avó told Observador that panic spread quickly as the funicular began to lose control. “The people inside were obviously scared, and we rushed to help,” she said. “Soon after, we saw the elevator upstairs was out of control, without brakes, and we all started running away because we thought it was going to hit the one below. But it fell around the bend and crashed into the building.” She added that emergency services arrived within minutes.Lisbon resident Abel Esteves, 75, who was on a tram just below the one that derailed with his wife and grandson, described the moment of impact. “I told my wife: ‘We’re all going to die here.’ It picked up a brutal speed, took a slight turn and hit the building with a loud bang.”The Gloria Funicular, one of Lisbon’s best-known trams, carries passengers up the steep 275-metre route between Restauradores Square and the Bairro Alto neighborhood. Built to handle the city’s hilly terrain, the funiculars are used daily by locals but are especially popular with tourists. With the summer season drawing to a close, Lisbon has been particularly busy in recent weeks..Fabiana Pavel, president of the Bairro Alto Residents’ Association, told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today Programme that the crash could be linked to “excessive tourism,” which has become a growing concern across southern Europe. “The use of it in recent years is certainly inappropriate,” she said, explaining locals were often unable to use the railway “because it became a tourist attraction.”Authorities say investigations into the cause of the derailment are ongoing.
