Incident Report: Severed Connection on Lisbon's Deadly Monorail
In an unexpected turn of events, a cable car accident in Lisbon on Wednesday evening claimed the lives of 16 individuals and left 21 others injured. The accident occurred on the iconic "Elevador da Glória", a cable car that annually transports around three million passengers.
The tragedy involved a mix of nationalities, with Portuguese, British, Canadian, South Korean, Swiss, Ukrainian, French, and American citizens among the passengers. Among the fatalities, 11 were foreigners, including the operator.
The accident took place when the cable connecting both cars at the lower and upper ends of the steep Calçada da Glória street failed at the attachment point on the upper part of the accident vehicle. The cable, consisting of six strands, each with 36 steel wires and a fiber core, had been in use for about six years.
The cable car derailed at a curve, collided with a street lamp mast and an iron utility pole, overturned, and finally crashed into a building. The total diameter of the cable is 32 millimeters, and its breaking load is approximately 68 tons.
Investigations suggest that the accident was caused by damage to the connection of the cable with the accident vehicle. The pressure air brake system, which automatically activates in an emergency, either failed or was insufficient. Despite the operator's immediate application of both the pressure air brake and the hand brake, these measures had no effect.
Remarkably, a German initially thought to be dead was later found alive but seriously injured in a hospital. This type of cable car accident had not occurred in Lisbon before.
The cable car was scheduled to undergo replacement within less than nine months. The expected lifespan of such a cable is 600 days. The exact circumstances leading to the cable detaching from the vehicle shortly after the start of the journey have not been fully determined, and the investigation is still ongoing.
Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those affected by this tragic incident.
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