AL-AYYAT, Egypt (AP) — Two trains collided Sunday south of Egyptian capital of Cairo, killing seven people and injuring at least 125, authorities said. The train driver was among those killed.
The Health Ministry gave the death toll, saying in a statement that more than 70 of the injured were released after receiving treatment.
The accident occurred in al-Ayyat district of Giza province, about 52 kilometers (32 miles) south of Cairo, when a train bound for the southwestern Fayoum province crashed into the rear of a train heading for the southern province of Aswan, according to the Transport Ministry.
The attorney general’s office said Sunday evening that its investigators had arrived at the scene. An inspection indicated that the accident occurred when the Giza-Fayyoum train collided with the last car of the Cairo-Aswan train, which was stationary on the same track and traveling in the same direction, officials said.
Train derailments and accidents are common in Egypt, where the rail system has a history of mismanagement and poor equipment maintenance. In recent years, the government has announced modernization initiatives.
Ayman Gamal, a resident of Kafr Girza in al-Ayyat where the accident occurred, said nearby residents rushed to the scene, pulled out survivors and called ambulances.
Gamal said he saw around 80 injured people being transported by ambulance to nearby hospitals. Some passengers were trapped inside one of the stationary train’s carriages and were dead when they were removed, he said.
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 kicked up. Neighboring 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 struggling to get out of the carriage.
“There were other cars that were completely destroyed,” she said in an interview.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in a social media post that he had ordered a swift investigation into the accident.
Emergency teams and cranes were dispatched to the scene to clear the rubble 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 when two freight trains collided in the same area.
Egypt’s deadliest train accident occurred in 2002, when more than 300 people were killed after a fire broke out on a night train traveling from Cairo to southern Egypt.
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