LISBON: The death of at least 16 people in an historic cable car that derailed in Lisbon has exposed flaws in the “old charm” image of the Portuguese capital, which is brimming with tourists but runs on quaint but creaking infrastructure.

In Wednesday’s crash, railcar left the track at a turn and hit a building just metres from its twin at the bottom of the steep 265-metre slope, leaving a mangled wreckage with bodies trapped inside. The traction cable linking them had snapped.

Jorge Silva, vice-president of the Portuguese association of civil protection technical experts, said a car made of a more modern material, such as carbon fibre, rather than metal and wood — the same design used since 1914 when the line was electrified — would have made the crash less violent and deadly.

“The pieces are rigid enough to withstand oscillation and normal service, but they’re not designed to withstand the impact in the event of a derailment, become twisted, leaving the passengers more exposed,” he said.

Lisbon’s trams running up and down its steep hills also date back to the mid-20th century and have a similar structure, he said.

“Investment should be made in renovating the carriages, using more modern materials, even if preserving their historic shape,” he said.

Silva said an investigation would show to what extent the pendulum cable system played a role in the crash.

The time-tested technology has had to cope with a tripling in the number of passengers on the “Gloria” funicular line in the past decade to more than 3 million people annually, as tourism booms.

The two cars, each capable of carrying around 40 people, alternately climb the slope and descend as electric motors pull the cable linking them.

Manuel Leal, leader of the Fectrans union, told local TV that workers had complained that problems with the tension of the cable had made braking difficult, but that it was too early to say if that was the cause of the crash.

The municipal transport company Carris said all maintenance protocols have been carried out. Silva said more rigorous and frequent maintenance and inspection was likely to be needed to prevent future accidents with current heavier use.

But modernisation attempts in the earthquake-prone city have also concerned engineers and architects, fearing a reoccurrence of the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755.

Many houses in downtown Lisbon built not long after 1755 with then-pioneering interconnected internal structures and pillars to withstand quakes have lately been adapted in a way that could compromise their original anti-seismic structures, several engineering experts told Reuters.

While newer houses built after 1958 must have seismic-resistant structures by law, no anti-seismic reinforcement is required for old buildings being renovated.

• Congressional approval needed, but Republicans unlikely to oppose.
• Critics argue name change is costly and unnecessary distraction.
• Move would put Trump’s stamp on govt’s biggest organisation.

US President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order on Friday to rename the Department of Defence the “Department of War,” a White House official said on Thursday, a move that would put Trump’s stamp on the government’s biggest organisation.

The order would authorise Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Defence Department and subordinate officials to use secondary titles such as “Secretary of War,” “Department of War,” and “Deputy Secretary of War” in official correspondence and public communications, according to a White House fact sheet.

The move would instruct Hegseth to recommend legislative and executive actions required to make the renaming permanent.

Since taking office in January, Trump has set out to rename a range of places and institutions, including the Gulf of Mexico, and to restore the original names of military bases that were changed after racial justice protests.

Department name changes are rare and require congressional approval, but Trump’s fellow Republicans hold slim majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives, and the party’s congressional leaders have shown little appetite for opposing any of Trump’s initiatives.

The US Department of Defence was called the War Department until 1949, when Congress consolidated the Army, Navy and Air Force in the wake of World War Two. The name was chosen in part to signal that in the nuclear age, the US was focused on preventing wars, according to historians.

Changing the name again will be costly and require updating signs and letterheads used not only by officials at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., but also military installations around the world.

An effort by former President Joe Biden to rename nine bases that honored the Confederacy and Confederate leaders was set to cost the Army $39 million. That effort was reversed by Hegseth earlier this year.

The Trump administration’s government downsizing team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, has sought to carry out cuts at the Pentagon in a bid to save money.

“Why not put this money toward supporting military families or toward employing diplomats that help prevent conflicts from starting in the first place?” said Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, a military veteran and member of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee.

“Because Trump would rather use our military to score political points than to strengthen our national security and support our brave servicemembers and their families – that’s why,” she told Reuters.

Long time in the making

Critics have said the planned name change is not only costly, but an unnecessary distraction for the Pentagon.

Hegseth has said that changing the name is “not just about words — it’s about the warrior ethos.”

This year, one of Trump’s closest congressional allies, Republican US House of Representatives Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, introduced a bill that would make it easier for a president to reorganise and rename agencies.

“We’re just going to do it. I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that … Defence is too defensive. We want to be defensive, but we want to be offensive too if we have to be,” Trump said last month.

Trump also mentioned the possibility of a name change in June, when he suggested that the name was originally changed to be “politically correct.”

But for some in the Trump administration, the effort goes back much further.

During Trump’s first term, current FBI Director Kash Patel, who was briefly at the Pentagon, had a sign-off on his emails that read: “Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense & the War Department.”

“I view it as a tribute to the history and heritage of the Department of Defence,” Patel told Reuters in 2021.

• Rubio says it may trigger new strikes, could harden conflict lines.
• Avoids comment on Israeli annexation plans, calls them not final.
• US Secretary of State makes these remarks during Ecuador visit.

The United States has told other countries that recognition of a Palestinian state will cause more problems, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday.

“We told all these countries, we told them all, we said if you guys do this recognition stuff, it’s all fake, it’s not even real, if you do it, you’re going to create problems,” Rubio said from Quito, where he met with President Daniel Noboa and his Ecuadorean counterpart.

“There’s going to be a response, it’s going to make it harder to get a ceasefire, and it may even trigger these sorts of actions that you’ve seen, or at least these attempts at these actions,” Rubio said, adding he would not opine on Israeli discussion of annexation of the West Bank but that it was not final.