Cause of Portugal funicular crash under investigation

Investigators sifted through the wreckage of a streetcar in downtown Lisbon on Thursday, trying to determine why the popular tourist attraction derailed during the busy summer season, killing 16 people and injuring 21, five of them seriously.

- BARRY HATTON AND SUMAN NAISHADHAM

ARMANDO FRANCA Associated Press POLICE officers inspect the site where a streetcar crashed in Lisbon, Portugal.

Portugal’s attorney-general’s office said eight victims have been identified so far: five Portuguese, two South Koreans and a Swiss person.

There is “a high possibility,” based on recovered documents and other evidence, that the victims also include two Canadians, one American, one German and one Ukrainian, according to the head of the national investigative police, Luis Neves. Three remain to be identified.

Among the injured are Spaniards, Israelis, Portuguese, Brazilians, Italians and French people, the executive director of Portugal's National Health Service, Alvaro Santos Almeida, said.

The nationalities appeared to confirm suspicions that the Elevador da Gloria was packed with tourists as well as locals when it came off its rails during the evening rush hour Wednesday.

Lisbon hosted around 8.5 million tourists last year, and long lines of people typically form for the streetcar’s short and picturesque trip a few hundred yards up and downa city street.

“This tragedy ... goes beyond our borders,” Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said at his official residence, calling it “one of the biggest tragedies of our recent past.” Portugal observed a national day of mourning on Thursday.

All 16 autopsies were concluded Thursday, but the identification of three victims requires access to dental records or family DNA that are held abroad, Francisco Corte-Real, the head of the National Forensic Medicine Institute, told a joint news conference.

Electric streetear was inspected daily