Three young men were killed on a rail line in Maia last night as they prepared to daub graffiti on a train carriage. The group was taken by surprise by a train travelling in the opposite direction. A fourth man escaped injury and was seen dragging his friends’ bodies off the line before disappearing into the darkness. Two of the dead men aged between 18-22 were Spanish, one was Portuguese.
The accident happened shortly before 8.30pm last night, next to Maia’s Águas Santas railway station.
It is a site that has been marked by tragedy, with a number of deaths of people crossing the line over the years. But on this occasion the motive for the youngsters’ entry onto the unfenced line seems to have been to paint graffiti on a stationary carriage.
Why they did not hear the approach of an oncoming train is what investigators today will be trying to work out.
Witnesses who gathered to watch the authorities take charge of the scene talked of a fourth man who seems for the time being to have vanished.
In its report today Correio da Manhã alludes to a Spanish-registered car having been found parked in a nearby street.
For the time being, no names of the victims have been released.
