Tragic Lisbon Funicular Crash Claims Canadian Tourist’s Life

On September 3rd, Hind Iguernane and her husband Aziz Benharref spent a romantic day visiting the must-see sites of Lisbon. To end the day on a high note, her husband convinced her to experience the funicular. "He told me: ’come, let’s do it, let’s do it for the experience. We’re in Lisbon, it’s part of the experience’," says the 32-year-old woman to Radio-Canada from Lisbon. Hind and Aziz were also the last to board the famous Gloria funicular, which connects the Bairro Alto and Baixa neighborhoods in the Portuguese capital.

The Moroccan-origin couple living in Orléans, a suburb of Ottawa, settled on the wooden bench at the back of the funicular cabin and took a "selfie" to immortalize the moment. Then they exchanged places and Hind found herself near the window. At the time of the closing of the doors, the woman says she heard a suspicious noise. "I told my husband: ’I’m afraid’". Then, "he told me not to panic, it’s going to be fine, it’s going to go very slowly." After, "everything happened at a dizzying speed," Hind recounts. "I don’t have a precise notion of time, but it was very fast, everyone was screaming."

And to continue: "I opened my eyes and I shouted Aziz’s name. I couldn’t turn around because there was a kind of beam that separated us. I could see the color of his t-shirt out of the corner of my eye. There was no blood, he had nothing, but it was his back. I reached out and cried for help." The young woman says she lost consciousness several times before the arrival of the rescuers and firefighters. She will be taken to the emergency room, without news of her husband and without her phone, lost in the accident.

Hind managed to send an email to her brother in Canada who launched an SOS on social media to help find Aziz. "People came to help me and they looked for Aziz in the nine hospitals in the city that took in patients. I prayed for him and I had the hope that he was alive..." she develops. After three days of searching, she learned the sad news. "It was his brother who announced it to me in the presence of a psychologist. My heart was in pieces."

Aziz and Hind had been living in Canada for six years. Aziz already had Canadian citizenship and Hind had the status of a resident. The young woman obtained authorization to repatriate her husband’s body. According to the first elements, the rupture of a cable would be at the origin of the tragic incident. Hind is still in shock. "I still can’t realize it. I miss him terribly. I listen to his voice and I look at his face, because they are only memories and I want to tell the people who read me to enjoy their loved ones, really."