‘I missed Lisbon funicular commute that killed my pal’

As they left, colleagues wept and supported one another as they tried to make sense of what had occurred. Several advised the BBC that they commonly used the funicular as a part of their commute.

Sitting on a bench exterior, Sonia mentioned she had labored on the charity for eight years and used the funicular every day.

“I can’t express [how I feel] – it’s very difficult. I am grateful but at the same time I’m very, very angry because my colleagues and lots of people died,” she mentioned.

She mentioned she would journey to and from work every day along with her colleague Sandra Coelho.

“I was very fond of her because I always took the funicular with her – going home and in the morning. It’s very difficult because I’m not going to see her anymore,” she mentioned by way of tears, as colleagues comforted her.

On their commute, she mentioned the 2 girls would gossip and discuss their days.

“We’d talk about colleagues, work, everything. We’d meet in the morning and when we finished,” she mentioned.

Others across the church additionally mourned the lack of mates and tried to course of what had occurred.

“It’s awful, we are devastated. It’s difficult to work at the moment,” mentioned Lurdes Henriques.

“We’re always thinking about our colleagues and wondering ‘did they suffer?’ They could be here with us now. We are deeply, deeply sad.”

“It could have been any one of us – all of us used this kind of transport and we felt very confident in it,” mentioned Tania, one other employee on the charity.

Rui Franco, a metropolis councillor whose shut pal and former colleague Alda Matias was killed in Wednesday’s crash, mentioned he was in shock.

“She was about my age. She had a family, children and I can’t imagine if it was me what would be happening to my family. She was a great person… with a very solid way of acting in the world,” he mentioned.

Mr Franco mentioned he was “already angry” when he first realized of the deadly crash, “then when I understood I knew the people involved, the rage [became] overwhelming”.