The yellow Gloria funicular, one of the capital’s best-known symbols, overturned at 6.15 pm local time near Liberty Avenue.
“A tragedy that our city has never seen,” Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas said, moments before rescuers confirmed a toll of 15 dead and 18 injured in the accident.
Authorities declared Thursday a day of national mourning.
All of the victims have been recovered from the wreckage, said Tiago Augusto, an official with the Inem emergency services, adding that the victims include foreigners.
No other details on the identity of the victims were immediately available.
Images shared on social media showed the moments immediately following the tragedy, with the funicular appearing out of a cloud of smoke and debris, completely smashed against a wall.
Another funicular is stopped a few metres away on the tracks. Tourists and onlookers watch, stunned. Later images show scores of firefighters and medical personnel at the scene.
The SIC television channel quoted a witness as saying that the funicular, which can hold about 40 people, hit a building as it sped down the steep street “at full speed.”
“It hit a building with brutal force and collapsed like a cardboard box; it had no brakes,” the woman said.
The Lisbon public transport operator said that it had complied with “all maintenance protocols.”
“Everything was scrupulously respected,” Pedro Bogas, the head of Lisbon Carris, said at the site of the accident, adding that maintenance of the funiculars has been done by an outside contractor for the past 14 years.
European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen posted on X that “it is with sadness that I learned of the derailment…My condolences to the families of the victims.”
The tragedy “has brought grief to… families and dismay to the country,” said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro.
Lisbon’s three funicular cars are popular with tourists and locals alike to get up and down Lisbon’s steep streets.
The yellow funicular is a ubiquitous image on souvenirs in the city’s gift shops.
The Gloria Funicular is the city’s most famous. It first entered into service in 1885, was hooked up to electricity in 1915 and undergoes general maintenance every four years, according to the website of Portugal’s national monuments. (AFP)
