Egypt collision between trains kills at least seven; more than 100 injured

Crash south of Cairo

The collision happened in al-Ayyat district, in Giza province, about 30 miles south of Cairo. The transport ministry said the train travelling towards Fayoum hit the rear of a train heading to Aswan.

Officials said an inspection found that the Cairo-Aswan train had been stopped on the track. Seven people were killed, and more than 100 suffered injuries.

Residents help survivors

Ayman Gamal, who lives in Kafr Girza in al-Ayyat, said residents hurried to the crash site. They pulled survivors from the trains and called for ambulances. Gamal said he watched ambulances take about 80 injured people to hospital. He also reported that some passengers were trapped in a carriage of the stopped train and died.

Investigation and recovery

The Egyptian railway authority said crews were working to return train services to their regular schedule as soon as possible. Rail crashes and derailments are common in Egypt, where the network has faced mismanagement and inadequate equipment maintenance.

Railway safety concerns

The government has announced railway modernisation initiatives in recent years. The crash took place in the same district as a collision between two freight trains last September, which injured a driver and his assistant. Egypt’s deadliest train crash occurred in 2002, when a fire on an overnight train travelling from Cairo to southern Egypt killed more than 300 people.