Quebec City couple André Bergeron and Blandine Daux enjoying their trip to Portugal for his 70th birthday before they were killed in a funicular accident in Lisbon Wednesday.Supplied
Blandine Daux and André Bergeron were enjoying the penultimate day of their trip to Portugal for his 70th birthday when the funicular they were riding through hilly Lisbon derailed, killing the Quebec City couple and 14 others.
Mr. Bergeron was retired from four decades of restoring and conserving artifacts, and Ms. Daux, still working in that archaeological field, had planned the celebratory trip, according to his younger brother Eric Bergeron.
“Why good people like that are dying and less good people are living is the mystery of life,” Mr. Bergeron said in a phone interview from Lisbon, where he had travelled with the couple’s two daughters, who are both in their 20s.
The distinctive yellow-and-white Elevador da Gloria, a cable car that is classified as a national monument, was packed with locals and tourists Wednesday evening when it came off its rails. Sixteen people were killed and 21 others were injured.
Police investigate Lisbon funicular crash
Investigations are under way after one of Lisbon’s most iconic tourist attractions, the Gloria funicular, derailed and hit a building, killing at least 16 people, including two Canadians, and injuring 20 more
Opened:
Route length:
1885
265 m
Travel time:
Capacity:
3 min
43
GLORIA FUNICULAR
How does it operate?
Two cars, powered by electric motors,
are connected to opposite ends of haulage
cable so that as one descends, its weight
helps pull other upward
BAIRRO ALTO
Rua de São Pedro de Alcântara
Calçada da Glória
Sept. 3, 18:05:
Carriage derails at bend,
crashing into building.
Local media reports
suggest cable came
loose along railway’s
route, causing the
funicular to lose control
LISBON
SPAIN
PORTUGAL
Lisbon
Avenida da Liberdade
300 km
SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS; OPENSTREETMAP
Police investigate Lisbon funicular crash
Investigations are under way after one of Lisbon’s most iconic tourist attractions, the Gloria funicular, derailed and hit a building, killing at least 16 people, including two Canadians, and injuring 20 more
Opened:
Route length:
1885
265 m
Travel time:
Capacity:
3 min
43
GLORIA FUNICULAR
How does it operate?
Two cars, powered by electric motors,
are connected to opposite ends of haulage cable so
that as one descends, its weight helps pull other upward
BAIRRO ALTO
Rua de São Pedro de Alcântara
Calçada da Glória
Sept. 3, 18:05:
Carriage derails at bend,
crashing into building.
Local media reports
suggest cable came
loose along railway’s
route, causing the
funicular to lose control
LISBON
SPAIN
PORTUGAL
Lisbon
Avenida da Liberdade
300 km
SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS; OPENSTREETMAP
Police investigate Lisbon funicular crash
Investigations are under way after one of Lisbon’s most iconic tourist attractions, the Gloria funicular, derailed and hit a building, killing at least 16 people, including two Canadians, and injuring 20 more
Opened:
Route length:
Travel time:
Capacity:
1885
265 m
3 min
43
GLORIA
FUNICULAR
How does it operate?
Two cars, powered by electric motors,
are connected to opposite ends of haulage cable so
that as one descends, its weight helps pull other upward
Front view
BAIRRO ALTO
FRANCE
300 km
Rua de São Pedro de Alcântara
PORTUGAL
SPAIN
Calçada da Glória
Lisbon
Sept. 3, 18:05:
Carriage derails at bend,
crashing into building.
Local media reports
suggest cable came
loose along railway’s
route, causing the
funicular to lose control
MOROCCO
ALGERIA
LISBON
Rossio Train Station
Avenida da Liberdade
RESTAURADORES
SQUARE
SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS; OPENSTREETMAP
Officials in Portugal had reported that two Canadians were missing and by Friday morning Ottawa confirmed they were dead.
Mr. Bergeron said he was in “commando mode” focusing on supporting his two nieces, who are shattered, and tasks such as organizing the repatriation of the couple’s remains. He has also met with police, who said it was too early in their investigation to release any details on how the funicular jumped the tracks and caused the fatal incident.
“Every hour or so I burst into tears,” he said.
He praised Canadian diplomats on the ground in Portugal for helping his family as well as the hospitality of the locals there, who are grieving the deaths of five compatriots.
The Portuguese government’s Office for Air and Rail Accident Investigations said it has concluded its analysis of the wreckage. The office said it would issue a preliminary technical report Friday, but it postponed that to Saturday, citing a delay in official procedures.
“This tragedy … goes beyond our borders,” Portugal’s Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said at his official residence, calling it “one of the biggest tragedies of our recent past.”
Portugal observed a national day of mourning Thursday.
The dead also included three British citizens, two South Koreans, one American, one French, one Swiss and one Ukrainian, police said in a statement.
Mr. Bergeron said the tragedy is also bringing out great generosity among strangers, which echoes the way his brother and wife treated people. In Lisbon, a woman insisted upon paying for his nieces’ hotel room upon hearing of their mix-up checking in after booking at the last minute, said Mr. Bergeron, who added that Ms. Daux’s sisters from France had also arrived in Lisbon to support their nieces.
Portuguese officials focused Thursday on establishing the causes of the crash of a Lisbon streetcar popular with tourists that killed at least 16 people and injured 21, five of them seriously.
The Associated Press
Ms. Daux immigrated to Quebec City more than two decades ago as an intern and soon fell in love with his brother, Mr. Bergeron said. She was an expert in restoring metal artifacts and he helped bring the wooden beams of sunken wrecks back to life so their histories of colonization and conquest could be better understood.
They both worked at a renowned provincial conservation centre.
The couple also brought their expertise into their personal lives, spending the past dozen years painstakingly restoring their home, a farmhouse from the early 1800s, and were nearing completion of this project, Mr. Bergeron said.
Hélène Côté, an archaeologist currently with the firm Ethnoscop and a former colleague of the couple, said in an interview that the husband and wife were very nice people who were hard workers that did not watch the clock. She added that they were the type of people who were always willing to collaborate – the kind you could go to with questions even if they were not working on a project.
He “was serious, a quiet guy,” Ms. Côté said, “and Blandine was quite funny, you know, she was full of life.”
Mr. Bergeron said his brother, who was 12 years older, shared his love of Star Trek and afflicted him with a passion for progressive rock.
“He was a bass player in a band when he was younger and I was a kid that was seven years old – I was listening to Genesis and those old progressive bands like King Crimson,” he said. “I was listening to all that weird music that all my friends had never heard.”
With reports from The Associated Press
Canada flags decorated flowers at a tribute to those that died in the derailment, on Friday.Armando Franca/The Associated Press