16 dead in Lisbon tram crash as Portugal observes day of mourning
Authorities declared Thursday a day of national mourning after tragedy hits popular tourist attraction
Portuguese authorities on Thursday said the Lisbon funicular disaster had killed 16 people and left five seriously injured, lowering the previous death toll by one.
Portugal’s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said in giving the new toll that the accident on Wednesday evening was “one of the biggest tragedies in our recent history”.
The civil protection service said only one person had died late on Wednesday after being taken to hospital, having previously reported two.
The dead were all adults, Margarida Castro Martins, head of Lisbon’s Civil Protection Agency, told reporters. She did not provide their names or nationalities, saying that their families would be informed first.
Another 21 people were injured, she said, adding that they were men and women between the ages of 24 and 65 as well as a 3-year-old child.
The injured 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.
The range of nationalities reflected how big a draw the renowned 19th-century tram was for tourists who were packing the Portuguese capital during the summer season. Portugal observed a national day of mourning on Thursday after the capital’s worst disaster in recent history.