Dozens injured after train derails near Cairo

Ninety-seven people were injured when some train carriages derailed in Egypt’s Qalyubia province north of Cairo, the health ministry said in a statement.

More than 50 ambulances rushed to the site and moved the injured to three hospitals in the province, it said on Sunday. Local media reports said some people had been killed in the accident.

At least eight train wagons were derailed, the provincial governor’s office said in a statement. Videos on social media purportedly showed carriages overturned and passengers escaping to safety along the railway.

The train was travelling to the Nile Delta city of Mansoura from the Egyptian capital, Cairo the statement added. The cause of the accident was not yet clear.

Egypt has seen several railway tragedies in recent years.

At least 20 people were killed and nearly 200 were injured in March when two trains collided near Tahta, about 440km (275 miles) south of Cairo.

Earlier this week, 15 people were injured after another train derailed in the northern province of Minya al-Qamh.

In February 2019 an unmanned locomotive slammed into a barrier inside Cairo’s main Ramses railway station, causing a huge explosion and a fire that killed at least 25 people. That crash prompted the thentransportation minister to resign.

Egypt’s deadliest train crash was in 2002, when over 300 people were killed after a fire broke out in an overnight train traveling from Cairo to southern Egypt.