Famed streetcar in Lisbon, Portugal, derails and crashes, killing 15 people

Lisbon’s landmark streetcar derailed Wednesday, killing 15 people, injuring 18 others, officials calling the disaster ‘the worst in the city’s recent history.’

LISBON, Portugal — A picturesque electric streetcar that is one of Lisbon’s big tourist attractions derailed and crashed Wednesday, killing 15 people and injuring 18 others, emergency services said.

Five of the injured were in serious condition and a child was among the injured, Portugal’s National Institute for Medical Emergencies said in a statement, adding that an unknown number of foreigners were among the injured.

Authorities called it an accident, the worst in the city’s recent history, and it cast a pall over Lisbon’s charm for the millions of foreign tourists who arrive every year. Officials did not immediately provide a cause of the crash.

The yellow-and-white streetcar, which is known as Elevador da Gloria and goes up and down a steep downtown hill, was lying on its side on the narrow road that it travels on, its sides and top crumpled. It appeared to have crashed into a building where the road bends, leaving parts of the mostly metal vehicle crushed.

“It hit the building with brutal force and fell apart like a cardboard box,” Teresa d’Avo told Portuguese TV channel SIC.

Several dozen emergency workers were at the scene but most stood down after about two hours.

Eyewitnesses told local media that the streetcar careened down the hill, apparently out of control. One witness said the streetcar toppled onto a man on a sidewalk.

Videos shared widely across social media of the moments after the accident showed what appeared to be heavy smoke in the air as people got out of a streetcar just in front of the one that crashed, some racing up the hill to the wreckage as people around yelled.

Carris, the company that operates the streetcar, said scheduled maintenance had been carried out. It offered its deepest condolences to the victims and their families in a social media post, and promised that all due diligence would be taken in finding the causes of the accident.

Lisbon’s City Council suspended operations of other streetcars in the city and ordered immediate inspections, local media reported.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa offered his condolences to affected families, and Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas said the city was in mourning. “It’s a tragedy of the like we’ve never seen,” Moedas said.

Portugal’s government announced that a day of national mourning would be observed on Thursday. “A tragic accident caused the irreparable loss of human life, which left in mourning their families and dismayed the whole country,” it said in a statement.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also sent her condolences. “It is with sadness that I learned of the derailment of the famous Elevador da Gloria,” she wrote in Portuguese on X.

The crash reportedly occurred at the start of the evening rush hour, around 6 p.m. Emergency officials said all victims were pulled out of the wreckage in just over two hours.

An investigation into the causes will begin once the rescue operation is over, the government said.

SITRA, a trade union, wrote in a post on social media that one of its members died in the accident.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote on X that he was “appalled by the terrible accident,” while Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani wrote that he had met with the Portuguese foreign minister and expressed his “solidarity with the victims.”

The U.S. Embassy Lisbon also offered its “deepest condolences to all affected,” according to a post on X.

The streetcar, technically called a funicular, is harnessed by steel cables and can carry more than 40 people, seated and standing. It is also commonly used by Lisbon residents. The service up and down a few hundred metres (yards) of a hill on a curved, traffic-free road in tandem with one going the opposite way inaugurated in 1885.

It is classified as a national monument.

Lisbon hosted around 8.5 million tourists last year, and long lines of people typically form for the brief rides on the popular streetcar.

By Barry Hatton.

Associated Press reporter Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.