Thirty-six passengers killed in Egypt train collision
AT LEAST 36 passengers were killed and more than 120 injured in a head-on rail crash in northern Egypt yesterday.
One train had been travelling to Alexandria from Cairo, the other from Port Said, when they collided during the evening rush hour.
Transport ministry officials said the accident was probably caused by a malfunction in one of the trains that brought it unexpectedly to a halt, with an oncoming train seeing it too late.
In pictures on social media, nearly a dozen wounded and dead could be seen lying next to the crash site covered in blankets. It is feared the death toll could rise.
Egypt’s transport minister ordered an investigation into the crash, pledging to “hold accountable” whoever was responsible.
The country’s railway system has a poor safety record, mostly blamed on decades of badly maintained equipment and poor management.
Egyptians have long complained that the government has failed to deal with chronic transport problems, which has done little to improve its roads and railway lines in recent years.
It is the deadliest train accident in the North African country since a November 2013 collision between a train and a bus that killed 27 people south of Cairo.
The freight train, travelling from the city of Beni Suef, hit the vehicles at a crossing about 25 miles from Cairo.
Many of those were relatives who had been returning from a wedding.
The most serious was in 2002 when 373 died after fire ripped through a crowded train south of the capital. The train rolled on for several miles, with the wind fanning the flames, before the engineer realised it was ablaze.