Portugal mourns 16 killed in Lisbon funicular crash

LISBON: Portugal held a day of national mourning on Thursday after one of Lisbon's famous funicular trains violently derailed and killed 16 people, including foreigners, and leaving five seriously injured.
Prime Minister Luis Montenegro called 'one of the biggest tragedies in our recent history'.
The yellow Gloria funicular, a beloved symbol of the Portuguese capital, veered off a steep stretch of tracks on Wednesday evening in one of Lisbon's most popular tourist spots, crashing into a building.
A woman interviewed by television channel SIC said the train, which can hold about 40 people, struck the building 'with brutal force and collapsed like a cardboard box'.
Images after the accident showed another funicular stopped on the tracks a few metres away on the tracks as tourists and onlookers watched, stunned.
Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas called the incident a tragedy the likes of which 'our city has never seen' before.

The identities of the victims were not immediately released.
Fifteen people — eight men and seven women — were killed instantly and one person died later in hospital, emergency services said.
Officials had said early on Thursday that 17 people had been killed, but they later corrected the toll and clarified that one person had died in hospital after previously reporting two.
More than 20 people were injured, including five who were in a serious condition, officials said.
At least 11 foreigners were among the injured — two Germans, two Spaniards, a Frenchwoman, an Italian, a Swiss national, a Canadian, a South Korean, a Moroccan and a Cape Verdean, emergency services said.
The Observador news website cited a police source as saying that a German man was killed, his wife was in a critical condition and their three-year-old child slightly injured.
The German foreign ministry said its Lisbon embassy was working with local authorities on identifying the victims.
'Unfortunately, we must assume that German citizens are also among those who have been affected,' the ministry said adding there was 'no reliable information on the number'.
An emergency services official confirmed that a three-year-old had been injured but did not specify the nationality. — AFP