At least 32 killed, scores hurt after trains collide in Egypt
CAIRO — Two trains crashed Friday in southern Egypt, killing at least 32 people and injuring 165, authorities said in the latest of a series of deadly accidents on the country’s troubled railways.
Someone apparently activated the emergency brakes on the passenger train, and it was rear-ended by another train, causing two cars to derail and flip, Egypt’s Railway Authorities said, although Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly later added that no cause has been determined.
Video showed twisted piles of metal with passengers covered with dust trapped inside — some bleeding and others unconscious. Bystanders removed the dead.
One passenger was heard shouting on the video, “Help us! People are dying!” A female passenger appeared to be upside down, squeezed under the seats, and was crying, “Get me out, boy!”
More than 100 ambulances were sent to the scene in the province of Sohag, about 270 miles south of Cairo, said Health Minister Hala Zayed.
Two planes carrying a total of 52 doctors, mostly surgeons, were sent to Sohag, she added at a news conference in the province, accompanied by Madbouly, who added that a military plane would bring those needing special surgery to Cairo.
Chief Prosecutor Hamada el-Sawy was on the scene to investigate the crash, he said.
“The (railway) service has been neglected for decades to an extent that made it quite outdated and extremely dangerous,” Madbouly told reporters. “We have spent billions to upgrade the railway but we still have a long way to go in order to complete all the required work.”
The government will pay the equivalent of $6,400 in compensation to each family that had a relative killed, Madbouly said, while the injured will get between $1,280 to $2,560, depending on how badly they were hurt.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said he was monitoring the situation and that those responsible would receive “a deterrent punishment.”
Egypt’s rail system has a history of badly maintained equipment and mismanagement, and official figures said there were 1,793 train accidents in 2017.
In 2018, a passenger train derailed near the southern city of Aswan, injuring at least six people and prompting authorities to fire the chief of the country’s railways. The same year, el-Sissi said the government needed about 250 billion Egyptian pounds, or about $14.1 billion, to overhaul the rail system. Those remarks came a day after a passenger train collided with a cargo train, killing at least 12 people.
A year earlier, two passenger trains collided near Alexandria, killing 43. In 2016, at least 51 people were killed when two commuter trains collided near Cairo.
The country’s deadliest crash was in 2002, when over 300 people were killed after fire broke out in a train headed to southern Egypt.