Elevador da Glória: Lisbon City Council wants to create a “support fund for victims”

Lisbon City Council (CML) wants to create a "municipal support fund for victims" of the Glória elevator accident. This is one of the proposals the PSD/CDS coalition brought to Monday's council meeting, in line with what the PS had also proposed, revealed the council's vice-president, Filipe Anacoreta Correia.

Upon entering the meeting, the mayor also said that on the table was "a tribute and recognition" for brakeman André Marques, who died as a result of the accident. "We propose naming a street after him and creating a collective memorial," he added.

"The issue of information also seems very important to us: creating a transparency portal where we can make available all the information and documents that are requested," Anacoreta Correia also indicated.

With a view to future assessment, the centrist mayor added, the executive proposes the creation of a team “to design a new technological system for this elevator, involving, if possible, the Order of Engineers and LNEC [National Civil Engineering Laboratory] (…) to provide unequivocal safety guarantees”.

In addition to all members of the municipal executive, the president of Carris, Pedro de Brito Bogas, is present at Monday's meeting.

The Glória elevator derailment last Wednesday killed 16 people, five of whom were Portuguese, and injured 22. The Glória elevator, operated by Carris, connects Restauradores to Jardim de São Pedro de Alcântara in Bairro Alto, a 276-meter route, and is a popular tourist destination.

Carlos Moedas, the mayor and a candidate for re-election in the October 12 elections, said on Sunday that he would resign if anyone could prove that the accident was the result of an error on his part.

"In this tragedy, there is no error that can be attributed to a decision by the Mayor. If anyone can prove that any action I took, anything I did as Mayor in relation to this company [Carris] led to this company not spending enough on maintenance, to this company not doing what it was supposed to do, I will resign that day," he said in an interview with SIC Notícias.