The name of the first victim of the deadly funicular crash in Lisbon that killed at least 16 people has been revealed.

Authorities today upped the number of dead following the crash that saw the city's iconic Elevador da Glória funicular derail and slam into a hotel corner building yesterday evening as it made its descent towards the city centre.

André Jorge Gonçalves Marques, who worked as the brake guard on the ill-fated ride, was the first victim to be named.

Portuguese transport union Sitra wrote in a statement: 'We send our condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the accident and wish them a speedy recovery as well as the best recovery to the others injured in the accident.'

His employer Carris, which runs the funicular, said Marques was a 'dedicated, kind and happy professional, always willing to contribute to the greater good'.

Among the dead are seven men, eight women and more who are yet to be identified.

One of the men who died was a German father who tragically passed away at the scene.

Portuguese news outlet Observador reported that his wife was in a critical condition in hospital and his three-year-old son sustained minor injuries.

Also among the dead are at least four people who worked at the largest charity in Portugal, according to local reports.

Employees at Misericordia de Lisboa Santa Casa regularly use the funicular to reach their offices in Lisbon.

The charity manages the Euromillions games, among other services.

The number of people reported to have died has changed throughout the day. While officials earlier said 17 had died, Portugal's prime minister said this afternoon that 16 people were killed.

Luís Montenegro said at a press conference: 'This is one of the biggest human tragedies of our recent history.'

He thanked emergency services for their work, as well as the hospitals looking after those injured, praising the 'quick response' that saved lives and 'avoided a bigger and more devastating tragedy'.

Shortly after its journey began, the first sign of disaster presented itself at the bottom of the hill, some 850ft away. The opposite cable car suddenly shunted, witnesses said, then unaware of the impending tragedy at the other end.

Near the top of the hill, as Lisbon's rush hour swarmed with commuters and visitors alike, a busy streetcar carrying families and tourists began its descent - only for a fault with its cables to occur.

Despite having gone through a full maintenance service, albeit a year ago, the car was left without brakes on a treacherous 17.7% steep slope separating the glitzy Bairro Alto nightlife district from the city centre.

The vehicle began to careen down the its course before coming off the tracks just after 6pm as it reached a sharp bend near the bottom.

The speeding cable car overshot the turn, flipping on to its side, smashing into a hotel building, causing the carriage to 'fall apart like a cardboard box', as one witness described it.

Smoke plumed into the street as locals rushed to the scene to help passengers from the wreckage. Fifteen were initially counted among the dead, and nearly two dozen rushed to hospital. Two people, sadly, died in the night.

Residents told local outlets that the railway is popular with tourists at this time of year, and often overcrowded.

The victims, including some foreign nationals, have all been recovered from the wreckage, according to the emergency services.

Fabiana Pavel, president of the Bairro Alto Residents' Association, told the BBC's Radio 4 Today Programme that the crash could have been due to 'excessive tourism' - a growing concern across southern Europe as locals are priced out of homes and economies become more dependent on foreign visitors.

'The use of it in recent years is certainly inappropriate,' she said, explaining locals were often unable to use the railway 'because it became a tourist attraction'.

Investigators are still scrambling to establish the exact cause of the tragedy, and Carris, the company that operates the streetcar, confirmed routine inspections had been carried out to make sure the funicular itself was safe last year.

The Lisbon Firefighters Regiment has since revealed that the accident was caused by a cable that came loose in the structure of the funicular.

How the funicular railway works

Inaugurated in 1885, Lisbon's funicular is a national monument, popular with locals and tourists alike.

It was electrified in 1915 and continues to serve millions of people every year in 2025.

The railway cars, operated by Lisbon municipal transport company Carris, work in tandem: one moves down a hill and its weight pulls another up the other way.

The streetcars work in parallel and are hauled by steel cables, which undergo regular inspection.

Traction is provided by electric motors on both cars.

The Glória takes passengers about 850ft from downtown Restauradores Square to Bairro Alto and back.

A cable holding the streetcar to the tracks appeared to have broken, causing the streetcar to lose control on a curved, steep section of the railway, it emerged.

The streetcar is harnessed by steel cables. It is commonly used by Lisbon residents, but also attracts some of the 8.5 million foreign visitors Lisbon attracts yearly.

It was not immediately clear whether British tourists were on board at the time of the collision.

An FCDO spokesperson told the Daily Mail this morning: 'We are aware of this incident in Lisbon and are in touch with the local authorities. We stand by to provide consular assistance if there are any affected British nationals.'

The Elevador da Glória funicular - one of three in Lisbon - takes some three million people across a few hundred metres of the city's steep hills each year on a curved, traffic-free road in tandem with one going the other way between Restauradores Square in the city centre, at 56ft altitude, to Bairro Alto, at 144ft.

Its two cars are attached to opposite ends of a haulage cable with traction provided by electric motors on the two cars.

Wednesday's tragedy unfolded as the descending yellow streetcar veered off a steep stretch of tracks near Liberty Avenue.

Eyewitnesses told local media that the carriage coursed down the hill, apparently out of control, before crashing into a building on Rua da Gloria, not far from the Restauradores Square.

Some said they heard a loud noise before the streetcar, which was travelling downhill, sped down its steep slope, seemingly out of control. One witness said the streetcar toppled onto a man on a sidewalk.

Teresa d'Avó told Portuguese TV channel SIC the train struck a building 'with brutal force and collapsed like a cardboard box'.

She described the streetcar as out-of-control and seeming to have no brakes, and said she watched passersby run into the middle of the nearby Avenida da Liberdade, or Freedom Avenue, the city's main thoroughfare.

She also said she was certain that there was a person on the pavement at the time the funicular came hurtling down and crashed into the building.

The car at the bottom of the line was apparently undamaged, but video from bystanders aired by CNN Portugal showed it jolting violently when the other one derailed and several passengers jumping out of its windows and people shouting.

The crash occurred at the start of the evening rush hour. Residents said it was likely a busy time for the funicular. Workers would have been leaving work and tourists and locals stepping out to shop, eat out or end the day over a drink. Suddenly, there was pandemonium.

'It was panic,' bystander Bruno Pereira told CNN Portugal. 'We all ran, everyone there. Some tried to pull people out from under the tram.'

He said he stayed at the scene for some time to help foreign tourists who needed someone to speak to them in French or English.

'People wouldn't let us go, they hugged us. Suddenly, a little boy came with his arms up, asking to be picked up,' he said.

Yasmin, who did not give her second name, told the outlet that she arrived to see the streetcar already overturned.

'People were screaming, many people on the ground, already dead... It's a scene I've never seen before. So many people screaming, so much blood. I've never seen anything like this.'

At the time of the crash, the streetcar would likely have been full with tourists and locals alike, she said.

Emergency officials said all victims were pulled out of the carriage in just over two hours from the time of the crash. Footage showed police and rescue personnel working into the night around the mangled funicular lying on its side against a wall of the street.

Several dozen emergency workers were at the scene but most stood down after about two hours.

The exact cause of the accident is still unclear. Fernando Nunes da Silva, an engineering expert and former Lisbon city council member, told SIC Noticias that he believed Wednesday's crash was caused by a broken traction cable.

'It's most likely that the traction cable broke and when that cable broke the brakes didn't work,' he told the outlet. 'The descending elevator gained momentum and continued at great speed.'

He said these elevators 'have a very sturdy metal structure and were built at a time when very rigid structures were highly valued'.

'For the [elevator] to be in that condition, it had to be hit very hard. There is no record of the elevator having had an accident in the last few decades.'

'Something surprising is that the brakes didn't work because when a situation like this happens, there are devices in the vehicle that allow braking to be applied.

'Even if this doesn't prevent the derailment, it could have reduced the impact.'

Local outlet Publico reported that the crash was caused by a break in the safety cable, connecting the two cabins and ensuring the counterweight.

Details have since begun to emerge about the casualties.

SITRA, a trade union, wrote in a post on social media that one of its members died in the accident.

André Jorge Gonçalves Marques, a brakeman for Carris, was named as the first fatality.

Emergency services said that at least 11 foreign nationals were injured in the Lisbon derailment - two Germans, two Spaniards and nationals from France, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, South Korea, Morocco and Cape Verde.

The Spanish Foreign Ministry confirmed that two Spanish citizens were injured in the crash.

Portuguese media reported that 23 were initially injured, five of whom were in serious condition, and that one was a child.

The figure was revised to seventeen fatalities and 21 injured on Thursday after two people died in the night.

Sao Jose Hospital received nine injured people, including the five in serious condition and a three-year-old child.

Portugal held a day of national mourning on Thursday to commemorate the victims, whose identities were not immediately available.

Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas called the incident 'a tragedy that our city has never seen'.

Carris, the company that operates the streetcar, said 'all maintenance protocols have been carried out', including monthly and weekly maintenance programmes and daily inspections.

Carris said in a statement that 'all maintenance protocols were implemented and adhered to,' and that the last inspection took place last year.

General maintenance was carried out in 2022, per its four-year schedule. The last interim repair, performed every two years, was carried out in 2024.

It offered its deepest condolences to the victims and their families in a social media post, and promised that all due diligence would be taken in finding the causes of the accident.

Prosecutors said they were opening an investigation into the accident's circumstances.

Lisbon's City Council suspended operations of other streetcars in the city and ordered immediate inspections, local media reported.