Witnesses describe a mortal funicular crash of Lisbon

It was just after 6:00 p.m. Wednesday on Wednesday when a car on the famous Gloria Funicular of Lisbon came in the turn of a stiff track street, crashed in a building and collapsed, said an eyewitness.

“He struck a building with brutal force and collapsed like a cardboard box,” said Teresa d’Avó to the Portuguese TV channel Sic, adding that he seemed that he had no brakes. “

Police are still investigating the cause of the accident, which killed at least 17 people and injured 20 others, some critically, near the Avenida de Lisbon in Liberdade in the Portuguese capital.

The video verified by the BBC shows the yellow and white train crushed on the turn of a crumpled hill against the building, another train stopped below. People run the inclination to the accident scene.

Helen Chow, who is from Canada and who visited Lisbon, was at the foot of the Gloria hill, hence the trams went up to the Bairro Alto district, when she said she heard a strong howl.

A tram “made a difficult stop, I saw black debris, heard the passengers on this howling tram … The driver rushed to open the doors at the entrance to the tram,” she told the BBC.

“People jumped out the window of this tram … Just when it happened, I saw the incident tram crashed in the building next to the Subway restaurant.”

“It was horrible … The sound was different from everything I ever heard,” she added. “I’m shaken.”

Ms. d’Avó told the Portuguese newspaper observador that the vehicle was “out of control, without brakes”.

“We all started to flee because we thought that (the car) was going to hit the one below,” she said. “But he fell into the turn and crashed into a building.”

Eric Packer, from the United States, but visiting Lisbon on vacation, told the BBC that he had chatted with his friends taking the cable car and took photos at 6:00 p.m. and 6:01 p.m., but decided to return to their hotel instead.

They walked about 60 meters and heard a crash noise “like a falling rock, like a tilting truck had dropped a load of rocks” at 6:02 pm.

They turned around to see the dust come out of the aisle about 45 meters (148 feet) behind them and returned to see what happened. At first, he thought it was the train below that fell, until he turned and saw the other train that was above, and realized “the extent of what had happened”.

Its photograph shows the yellow and white train, a tangle of metal, at the corner of the narrow lane under a metro restaurant panel, with the other train at the bottom of the hill below.

“People were walking) running to try to help,” he said. “A horrible tragedy and our thoughts and our prayers go to families and survivors.”