Toddler dies after being left for seven hours in hot vehicle at nursery school

A toddler has died after being left for seven hours in searing temperatures inside a nursery transport vehicle by a famous tourist viewpoint.

The 18-month-old girl is said to have been “forgotten” inside the vehicle in Almada on the southern bank of the Tagus River directly opposite Lisbon.

It was parked by the access to the giant religious Cristo Rei shrine featuring a tall statue of Jesus Christ with open arms facing the Portuguese capital.

Hundreds of tourists are said to have passed by the spot where the little girl called Sofia was slowly dying in temperatures which reached 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit ) yesterday without seeing her behind the darkened and closed windows of the seven-seater SUV.

Paramedics and police were alerted just before 4pm yesterday after the child’s mum went to collect her and was told she had never arrived at the nursery.

Desperate attempts to revive her by emergency medical responders after she was discovered in a “critical condition” inside a Peugeot 5008 outside the main nursery campus proved unsuccessful and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

A police investigation has been launched and was ongoing today. No arrests are expected to take place until the results of the post-mortem are known.

Overnight it emerged the child was picked up around 8.20am yesterday and instead of being left at the creche she went to every day, remained in the vehicle at the first drop-off and continued to the same nursery’s main centre around a mile away before being abandoned alone in the locked-up SUV.

The child’s gran told Portuguese tabloid Correio da Manha as news of the little girl’s death emerged: “My granddaughter was handed over at 8.20am.

“We don’t understand why she wasn’t taken to the daycare centre she was attending. This had been the routine for the past year.

“They’ve killed my granddaughter.”

The creche at the centre of the drama has been named locally as Colegio Mestre Cuco which has yet to make any official comment.

The vehicle, initially described as a minibus before it emerged it was a grey Peugeot 5008, was filmed being taken away by a tow truck yesterday evening.

Portugal’s Policia Judiciaria police force have been mobilised to take charge of the ongoing investigation.

Two children aged two and four were found dead in their family’s car in the town of Carpentras in southeastern France last month as Europe suffered a ferocious heatwave.

In September 2023 a baby girl called Madalena died after being left in a car on a Portuguese university campus for several hours in 26 degree heat.

The 10-month-old child’s father, described at the time locally as a lecturer and departmental head at the campus near Lisbon, is believed to have forgotten to drop her off at its creche before going to work and leaving her in the vehicle.

He reportedly called 999 after realising his tragic error and discovering the youngster unconscious inside the car.

Efforts to revive her proved unsuccessful and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

The unnamed father is said to have parked the family SEAT Ateca car by the campus creche around 8am on September 12 2023 before going to work at his office in the Nova School of Science and Technology, a faculty of the NOVA University Lisbon located at the Caparica Campus in Almada a half-hour drive south of the Portuguese capital.

In May last year a three-year-old boy died in a popular Spanish tourist town after being found trapped inside a parked car in eighty degree heat.

Emergency responders including police and paramedics were sent to the scene after a 999 call from a member of the public.

They tried to revive him for several minutes after freeing him from the vehicle and discovering he didn’t have a heartbeat.

The child was then rushed to a local hospital where he was certified dead.

The drama happened in Linares in the Andalucian province of Jaen, home to the Andres Segovia House Museum dedicated to celebrated classical guitarist Andrés Segovia.

The town is close to Baeza and Ubeda which are both UNESCO World Heritage sites.

The Cristo Rei shrine, known in English as the Sanctuary of Christ the King, was inspired by the Christ the Redeemer statue of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil after the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon visited that monument.

The monument consists of an 82 metre (269ft) high pedestal of 82 metres (269 ft) height, formed by four arches and a flat platform, supporting the 28 metre (92ft) image of Christ.