Egyptian authorities said a passenger train derailed north of Cairo, killing at least 11 people.
Four train carriages ran from the railway along the city of Banha in the province of Qalyubia, just outside Cairo, the railway authority said in a statement on Sunday. On videos on social media, cars can be seen overturning and passengers escaping to the side of the railway to safety.
The train traveled from the Egyptian capital to the Nile delta city of Mansoura.
The health ministry said at least 98 people were injured, most of them suffering from broken bones, cuts and bruises. At least 60 ambulances were sent to the scene and the injured were taken to hospitals in the area.
Rescue teams could be seen searching for survivors and removing the derailed wagons. It was not immediately clear what caused the train to derail, and prosecutors said they were investigating the causes of the crash.
The state-run Ahram daily reported that authorities detained at least ten railway officials, including the train driver and his assistant, pending an investigation.
At Banha University Hospital, people lined up to donate blood for the victims of the crash. There were also families looking for loved ones who traveled by train.
Sunday’s crash occurred three weeks after two passenger trains collided in Sohag province, killing at least 18 people and injuring 200 others, including children. Prosecutors said they found gross negligence by railroad workers was behind the deadly crash on March 25, which caused public outcry across the country.
Train wrecks and accidents are common in Egypt, where the railway system has a history of poorly maintained equipment and mismanagement. The government says it has launched a broad-based overhaul and modernization initiative. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said in March 2018 that the government needed about 250 billion Egyptian pounds ($ 14.1 billion) to repair the dilapidated rail system.
Hundreds of train accidents are reported in Egypt every year. In February 2019, an unmanned locomotive hit a barrier in the main station Ramses in Cairo, which caused 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 in a train journey from Cairo to southern Egypt.