Train collision in Egypt's Giza province leaves at least 7 dead and over 100 injured
Two passenger trains collided south of Cairo on Sunday, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 100, according to Egyptian authorities.
By Evelyn Adeyemi ·
At least seven people were killed and more than 100 others injured when two trains collided south of Cairo on Sunday, the Egyptian chief prosecutor's office said in a statement.
The crash took place in the al-Ayyat district of Giza province, roughly 52 kilometers (32 miles) south of the capital. According to the Egyptian Transportation Ministry, a train bound for the southwestern province of Fayoum slammed into the rear of another train traveling to Aswan in the south.
The ministry said one of the trains derailed in the impact, though it did not say which one. It also confirmed that a conductor from one of the trains was among the dead.
Egypt's state railway authority offered a similar account, saying a train traveling from Giza to Fayoum struck the back of a service running from Cairo to Aswan, causing several carriages to leave the tracks.
AFP journalists at the scene described several carriages lying on their sides. One end of a train had crumpled into a tangle of steel, while the end of the other, split open by the force of the collision, had fallen off the tracks into a neighboring farm. Images from the site showed first responders and bystanders lifting one victim from the wreckage in a black body bag.
The railway authority said emergency crews were working to clear the wreckage and restore service on the Cairo-Upper Egypt line, but gave no estimate of how long that effort would take.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi ordered a swift investigation into the disaster and said anyone found negligent should be held accountable, according to a separate statement. Egypt's public prosecutor's office said investigations were already underway to establish the technical causes of the crash.
Egypt operates one of the oldest and largest railway networks in the region, and deadly accidents are frequent, even as the government spends billions of Egyptian pounds on modernization. In September of last year, two freight trains collided in the same district, injuring a driver and his assistant. The country's worst rail disaster occurred in 2002, when a fire swept through seven carriages of an overcrowded passenger train, killing at least 360 people.
