‘Out of Control’: What witnesses say about fatal accident in the cable car of Lisbon

Bonde of the Glory Elevator toppled after derail and left at least 16 dead Reuters via BBC passed just from 6 pm on Wednesday (3) when a cable car from the famous Glory Elevator in Lisbon skilled at the bend of a steep cobblestone street, collided with a building and toppled over, according to eyewitnesses. The carriage “lost control”, down at all speed and falling sideways, told Helen Chow, who was at the base of the hill, to the BBC. The sound looked like a bomb, she said, followed by a “scary and complete silence … There was black smoke like pitch. As soon as she dissipated, you could see exactly what happened.” People were desperate and crying, with others running to help, she described. “It was horrible,” he said. “I’m shaken.” Police are still investigating the cause of the accident, which killed at least 16 people and injured about 20, some in serious condition, near Avenida da Liberdade, in Lisbon, in the Portuguese capital. A Brazilian is among the injured, according to BBC News Brasil the consul general of Brazil in Lisbon, Alessandro Warley Candeas. A video checked by the BBC shows the rugged yellow and white tram against a building in the curve of a hill, with another train stopped at the end. People run hills up toward the scene of the accident. Images show an accident in the Glory Elevator, Lisbon’s tourist spot, the two 140 -year -old tram wagons, powered by electric motors, are trapped by a cable that allows one to get down while the other rises, passing each other soon along the three -minute route. Witnesses described how the wagon near the base of the hill, which was starting to climb, reversed just before the upper wagon went down the slope and colliding with the building. Shortly before the accident, Chow, which is from Canada and was visiting Lisbon, said he heard a loud scream. She saw the lower wagon back back a few meters, surpass the white line where she used to stop and make “a sudden stop” at the end of the tracks. Chow saw black debris and heard people shouting as the driver ran to open the entrance gates. “People jumped from that tram’s window,” she said. “As soon as this happened, I saw the incident tram collide with the building next to the Subway restaurant.” Abel Esteves, a resident of Lisbon, was in the lower tram with almost 40 people when he saw the other “down the great speed.” “I shouted to my wife, ‘Let’s all die here,’ because I thought the tram was going down toward us,” he told the BBC. Another witness ran to help after the lower carriage fell before seeing the other coming down “out of control.” “We just had time to escape, turn our backs and run,” he told SIC Notícias. “The carriage fell and hit the building at high speed.” Teresa d’Avó said the tram “hit a building with a brutal force and collapsed like a cardboard box,” SIC telling SIC that it looked “without brakes.” The tourist guide Marianna Figueiredo was among those who ran to the place to try to rescue people. “I started climbing the hill to help people, but when I got there, the only thing I heard was silence.” Figueiredo said that initially thought that the second tram was empty, but when the ceiling was torn, “began to see the bodies.” “We tried to immediately call ambulances and firefighters to help,” she said, adding that the local community, including drivers and shopkeepers, provided help. “Many people cried around me. They were very scared. I tried to calm people, asking their names and where they came from,” she said. Cable car that derails down at high speed, says passenger she said that what she saw is “very difficult to describe.” “It was very bad. A great tragedy.” Some tourists told the BBC that they almost took the tram at the time of the accident. Eric Packer, who lives in the US and visited Lisbon during his holidays, told the BBC that he had talked to his friends about taking the cable car and took pictures at 18h and 18h01, but decided to walk back to the hotel. They walked about 60 meters and heard a strong crash “like a falling stone, as if a tasting truck had knocked a load of stones” at 6:02 pm. They turned and turned dust coming out of the alley about 45 meters behind them and came back to see what had happened. At first he thought it was the train lower that fell until he turned and saw the other train that was above him, and then realized “the magnitude of what had happened.” The photo he took shows the yellow and white train, a tangle of metal, on the corner of the narrow alley under the sign of a Subway restaurant, with the other train at the base of the hill below it. “People were approaching and running to try to help,” he said. “A horrible tragedy and our thoughts and prayers are with families and survivors.” Additional report by Alex Akhurst, Bernadette McCague, Marina Costa and Alice Cuddy

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