TAHTA, Egypt (AP) – Two trains crashed in southern Egypt on Friday, killing at least 32 people and injuring 165, authorities said in the latest series of fatal railway accidents in the country.
It appears that someone activated the passenger train’s emergency brakes and it was stopped by another train, causing two carriages to derail and turn on their side, Egyptian railway authorities said, although Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly later added that no cause has been established. . The passenger train was heading to the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, north of Cairo, railway officials said.
The video showed twisted piles of metal with passengers covered in dust trapped inside – some bleeding and others unconscious. Spectators removed the dead and placed them on the ground nearby.
A passenger was heard shouting on the video, “Help us! People are dying! A female passenger seemed to be upside down, huddled under the seats and shouting, “Get me out, boy!”
Hazem Seliman, who lives near the tracks and heard the crash, said he initially thought the train hit a car. When he arrived at the scene, he said he found dead and wounded men, including women and children.
“We transported the deceased and put the injured in ambulances,” he said.
More than 100 ambulances were dispatched to the scene in Sohag province, about 440 kilometers south of Cairo, Health Minister Hala Zayed said, and the injured were taken to four hospitals. The injuries included broken bones, cuts and bruises.
Two planes carrying a total of 52 doctors, mostly surgeons, were sent to Sohag, she added at a news conference in the province, accompanied by Madbouly, who added that a military plane would bring those in need. a special surgery in Cairo.
Chief Prosecutor Hamada el-Sawy was on the scene to investigate the accident, he said.
“The (rail) service has been neglected for decades to an extent that made it quite outdated and extremely dangerous,” Madbouly told reporters. “We have spent billions on modernizing the railway, but we still have a long way to go to complete all the necessary work.”
The government will pay the equivalent of $ 6,400 in compensation for each family that killed a relative, Madbouly said, while the injured will receive between $ 1,280 and $ 2,560, depending on how badly they were injured.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said he was monitoring the situation and that those responsible would receive “a discouraging punishment”.
“The pain that tears our hearts today can only make us more determined to end this type of disaster,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
Egypt’s railway system has a history of poorly maintained and poorly managed equipment, and official figures say there were 1,793 train accidents in 2017.
In 2018, a passenger train derailed near the southern city of Aswan, injuring at least six people and prompting authorities to fire the country’s head of railways. In the same year, el-Sissi said the government needed about 250 billion Egyptian pounds ($ 14.1 billion) to overhaul the rail system. These observations came a day after a passenger train collided with a freight train, killing at least 12 people.
A year earlier, two passenger trains collided right in front of Alexandria, killing 43. 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 on a train traveling from Cairo to southern Egypt.