Giza: Seven were killed and over 100 injured when two trains collided Sunday south of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, the Chief Prosecutor's office said in a statement.
The crash occurred in al-Ayyat district in Giza province, about 52 kilometres south of Cairo, when a train travelling to the southwestern Fayoum province crashed into the rear of a train heading to the southern province of Aswan, according to the Transportation Ministry.
The Chief Prosecutor's office said its investigators had arrived at the site. An inspection indicated that the crash took place when the Giza-Fayyoum train collided with the last carriage of the Cairo-Aswan train, that was stationary on the same track and travelling in the same direction, officials said.
In a post on X, the Ministry of Health said Health and Population Minister Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar was closely monitoring the medical response and the condition of those injured in the incident.
"Health Minister monitors emergency and medical services following the El-Ayyat train accident in Giza Governorate," the ministry said.
Train derailments and crashes are common in Egypt, where the railway system which has a history of mismanagement and poor maintenance of equipment. In recent years, the government announced modernisation initiatives to improve its railways.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in a social media post that he ordered a prompt investigation into the crash to hold those responsible accountable.
أتابع باهتمام بالغ تداعيات حادث القطارين وأعرب عن خالص مواساتي لأسر المتوفين وأصدق التمنيات بالشفاء للمصابين .و قد وجّهت أجهزة الدولة بتوفير الرعاية الطبية اللازمة، وسرعة التحقيق في ملابسات الحادث، ومحاسبة كل من يثبت تقصيره.
Emergency teams and cranes were dispatched to the scene to clear the wreckage and restore train services to their normal schedule as soon as possible, the Egyptian Railway Authority said.
Footage circulating on social media showed overturned carriages lying in a field a short distance from the tracks.
Ayman Gamal, a resident of Kafr Girza in al-Ayyat where the crash occurred, said people living nearby rushed to the scene, pulled out survivors and called ambulances,
Gamal said that he saw around 80 of the injured were taken by ambulances to nearby hospitals. Some passengers were trapped inside one of the carriages of the stationary train and were dead when they were pulled out, he said.
Egypt's deadliest train crash was in 2002, when more than 300 people were killed after a fire broke out on an overnight train journeying from Cairo to southern Egypt.
Last September, a train driver and his assistant were injured after two freight trains collided in the same district.
The incident happened within two weeks after the fatal collision in the Toledo province of Spain in which 68 died and 58 were injured.
(With inputs from AP via PTI & ANI)