Pedro Bogas, the president of Carris – the company in charge of Lisbon’s public transports – has set the record straight.
In a press conference this afternoon – and with questions swirling over maintenance – he ‘guaranteed’ that all the necessary inspections of the Glória funicular which crashed so dramatically last night, killing 16 people and injuring many more, were ‘up-to-date and faultless’.
He addressed the issue of maintenance, and the tender for maintenance that closed without success in August, by explaining that the company, MAIN (Main Maintenance Engineering), which has been securing this service since 2019 has continued in place, simply sealing a five-month contract to tide Carris over while a new tender is launched.
Starting the press conference with his solidarity for the victims of what is now being dubbed as the ‘worst tragedy in Lisbon this century’, he, like the prime minister and mayor of Lisbon before him, stressed the efficiency and prompt response of rescue teams that “allowed lives to be saved”.
Carris has opened an internal inquiry into what caused yesterday’s disaster which will count on the support of an ‘outside’ consultant, he said.
Boges also confirmed that all funiculars and lifts in the city have now been temporarily ‘halted’ so that they can be submitted to full technical inspections “by independent entities”.
The company’s president made a point of stressing that Carris has consistently increased its investment in the city’s historic means of passenger transport, as well as in its regular trams and buses.
In the meantime, Observador has revealed that the Glória funicular was inspected yesterday morning, for a good 30 minutes, and the cable that is understood to have snapped – leading to the tragedy – was given 263 days before its ‘date for substitution’.
Texts online appear to suggest Mr Boges was not tackled over the comments by syndicate leader Manuel Leal, who claims there had been “successive complaints” about maintenance of the funiculars.
The day has thus reached the point where the country is now aware of everything that is being put in place to try and find out what went so catastrophically wrong a little more than 24-hours ago, sending Lisbon onto the front pages of the world’s media.
Source material: RTP
