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Egypt Train Crash Kills 4, Injures 88 Near CairoWorld
Two trains collided near Al-Ayyat in Giza, killing at least four people and injuring 88. Egypt’s president has ordered an urgent investigation into the crash.
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Two passenger trains collided some 76 kilometres south of Cairo on Sunday, killing at least four people and injuring 88, Egypt’s health ministry said, in the country’s latest deadly rail accident.
The state railway authority said a train travelling from Giza to Fayoum hit the back of another heading from Cairo to Aswan, derailing several carriages. The crash happened in the Al-Ayyat area of Giza province, near the village of Gerza, between Kafr Ammar and Al-Raqqa stations.
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Emergency teams rushed to the scene with 72 ambulances, and the injured were taken to hospitals in Giza and neighbouring Beni Suef. The health ministry said 49 injured people were taken to Al-Wasati Hospital, 39 to Al-Ayat Hospital and 10 to Atfih Hospital, with injuries ranging from bruises and fractures to head and chest injuries.
Conflicting early reports put the scale of the disaster differently. The health ministry first reported four dead and 88 injured, then later raised the toll to seven dead and more than 100 injured, according to later reports. State media had earlier spoken of about 120 wounded, without clarifying the degree of injury, and the differing figures had not been reconciled by the authorities. Dozens of injured passengers have already been discharged from hospitals in the Giza area.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he was following the accident with great concern and ordered an urgent investigation to establish the causes and to hold accountable anyone found to have been negligent. The Prosecutor General’s Office has also opened an investigation into the cause and circumstances of the crash, officials said. No cause has been announced so far.
Emergency crews were clearing the wreckage to restore services on the Cairo to Upper Egypt line, the railway authority said, without giving any indication of how long that would take. The line is one of the busiest in the country, carrying passengers between the capital and the south.
Al-Ayyat is a name Egyptians know for the worst of reasons. The area was the site of the country’s worst-ever rail disaster, and Sunday’s crash has renewed questions about safety on a network that has suffered a series of fatal accidents despite repeated promises of reform and investment in signalling and track upgrades.
For the families waiting at hospitals in Giza on Sunday night, the official figures were still changing. What was not in doubt was that a routine journey south from Cairo had ended in wreckage, and that another Egyptian rail inquiry was under way.
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