A passenger train derailed north of Cairo on Sunday, killing at least 11 people and injuring many more, Egyptian authorities said. It was the latest in several deadly rail accidents to hit the country in recent years.
At least 60 ambulances rushed to locate survivors and help those injured when four train carriages ran off the track just outside Cairo, the railway authority said. At least 98 people were injured, mostly with broken bones, cuts and bruises, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
Videos on social media show train carriages overturning in the town of Banha in Qalyubia province and passengers escaping along the tracks. The railway authority said in a statement that the train was on its way to the Nile Delta city of Mansura from Cairo, the capital.
Rescue teams could be seen searching for survivors and removing the derailed train carriages. It was not immediately clear what caused the derailment, and prosecutors said they were investigating.
The state-run daily Ahram reported that authorities had detained at least ten railway officials, including the train conductor and his assistant, pending an investigation into the crash.
At Banha University Hospital, people lined up on Sunday to donate blood for the accident victims. Families were also there looking for loved ones who were on the train.
“We were surprised by the train speeding fast,” said Tarek Gomaa, one of the injured. “We found ourselves on top of each other.”
Sunday’s crash happened three weeks after two passenger trains collided in Sohag province, killing at least 18 people and injuring 200 others. Prosecutors said there was great negligence on the part of railway workers behind the March 25 crash, which caused public outcry across the country.
Train wrecks are common in Egypt, where the railway system has a history of poor equipment and mismanagement. The government says it has embarked on a broad-based effort to overhaul and modernize the system. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said three years ago that the government needed about 250 billion Egyptian pounds, or $ 14.1 billion, to refurbish the country’s trains.
Hundreds of train accidents are reported in Egypt every year. In February 2019, an unmanned locomotive struck a barrier in Cairo’s main station, causing a huge explosion and a fire that killed at least 25 people. The accident led the then Minister of Transport to resign.
In August 2017, two passenger trains collided just outside the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, killing 43 people. In 2016, at least 51 people were killed when two commuter trains collided near Cairo.
Egypt’s deadliest train crash was in 2002, when more than 300 people were killed after a fire broke out in an overnight train traveling from Cairo to southern Egypt.