Tourist tagedy in Lisbon: 15 dead and 18 injured as city’s famous Gloria funicular derails | Watch

“A tragedy that our city has never seen,” Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas said of the accident involving the yellow Gloria funicular, one of the capital’s best-known symbols.

All victims had been pulled from the wreckage Tiago Augusto of the Inem emergency services said and noted that foreigners were among them . Rescuers reported 15 dead and 18 injured, though the identities of those affected have not yet been released.

Thursday has been declared as a day of national mourning.

European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen posted on X that “it is with sadness that I learned of the derailment… My condolences to the families of the victims”.

The tragedy “has brought grief to… families and dismay to the country,” said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro.

Images shared on social media showed the moments immediately following the tragedy, with the funicular appearing out of a cloud of smoke and debris, completely smashed against a wall.

Another funicular was stopped a few metres away on the tracks as tourists and onlookers watched, stunned.

The SIC television channel quoted a witness as saying that the funicular, which can hold about 40 people, hit a building as it sped down the steep street “at full speed”.

“It hit a building with brutal force and collapsed like a cardboard box; it had no brakes,” the woman said.

The Lisbon public transport operator said it had complied with “all maintenance protocols”.

“Everything was scrupulously respected,” Pedro Bogas, the head of Lisbon Carris, said at the site of the accident, adding that maintenance of the funiculars has been done by an outside contractor for the past 14 years.

General maintenance is carried out every four years and was last conducted in 2022, Carris said. Intermediate maintenance takes place every two years and was completed in 2024.

Lisbon prosecutors were opening an investigation into the circumstances of the accident.

A large number of firefighters, police and other emergency personnel remained at the scene into the night, surrounding the badly damaged train that remained on its side, AFP journalists saw.