Reported by The Guardian
President orders prompt investigation after one train derails in collision in al-Ayyat about 30 miles from Cairo
Seven people were killed and more than 100 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 30 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.
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An inspection indicated that the Cairo-Aswan train had been stationary on the same track, officials said.
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 80 of the injured being taken by ambulances to hospital. He said some passengers were trapped inside one of the carriages of the stationary train and died.
Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, said in a social media post that he had ordered a prompt investigation.
Emergency teams and cranes were dispatched to the scene 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 2002 when more than 300 people were killed after a fire broke out on an overnight train journeying from Cairo to southern Egypt.