President orders prompt investigation after one train derails in collision in al-Ayyat about ٥٠km from Cairo
Seven people were killed and at least ١٢٥ injured when two trains collided on Sunday south of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, officials said.
The crash occurred in al-Ayyat district in Giza province, about ٥٠km (٣٠ miles) south of Cairo, when a train travelling to Fayoum province crashed into the rear of a train heading to the southern province of Aswan, according to the transport ministry.
An inspection indicated that the Cairo-Aswan train had been stationary on the same track, officials said.
The health ministry gave the casualty toll, adding more than ٧٠ of the injured were discharged after receiving treatment.
Train derailments and crashes are common in Egypt, where the railway system has a history of mismanagement and poor maintenance of equipment. In recent years the government has announced modernisation initiatives to improve its railways.
Ayman Gamal, a resident of Kafr Girza in al-Ayyat where the crash occurred, said people rushed to the scene, pulled out survivors and called ambulances.
Gamal said he saw about ٨٠ of the injured being taken by ambulances to hospital. Some passengers were trapped inside one of the carriages of the stationary train and died, he said.
Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, said in a social media post that he had ordered a prompt investigation.
Outside al-Wasta central hospital in Beni Suef province, where some of the injured were taken for treatment, survivors said passengers were in shock and struggling to breathe because of all the dust that was kicked up. Nearby villagers eventually got them out, they said.
Farha Gamal, a survivor who was inside the Fayyoum train, said she saw some of the passengers who appeared dead and others were struggling to find their way out of the car. “There were other cars that were completely mangled,” she said in an interview.
Emergency teams and cranes were dispatched to the crash site to clear the wreckage and restore train services to their normal schedule as soon as possible, the Egyptian railway authority said.
Last September, a train driver and his assistant were injured after two freight trains collided in the same district.
Egypt’s deadliest train crash was in ٢٠٠٢ when more than ٣٠٠ people were killed after a fire broke out on an overnight train journeying from Cairo to southern Egypt.
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