Seven dead after train hits stopped railcar south of Cairo
Collision between two southbound services near Giza leaves over 100 injured and suspends rail traffic to Upper Egypt.
By Robert Ward ·
A collision between two trains traveling in the same direction south of Cairo killed at least seven people and injured more than 100 others on Sunday. The crash occurred when a moving service struck the rear of a stationary train, causing multiple carriages to derail and roll off an embankment. The impact split some carriages in two, creating a scene of severe structural damage that required extensive rescue efforts.
The railway authority stated that the first train was traveling from Giza to Fayoum. It collided with a second service that had been stopped on the tracks while en route from Cairo to Aswan. The force of the impact pushed several cars off the tracks. Health officials reported that many of the injured sustained head trauma and broken bones. Local hospitals were placed on heightened alert to manage the large influx of patients. Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, the minister of health, confirmed that the driver of one of the trains was among those killed.
President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi ordered state authorities to investigate the circumstances of the crash thoroughly. He instructed officials to hold any parties found to be negligent accountable for the tragedy. The public prosecutor's office noted that the number of fatalities could rise as rescue and recovery operations continued. Emergency workers and bystanders searched inside overturned carriages for survivors in the immediate aftermath of the accident.
Rail services between Giza and the Upper Egypt region were suspended following the incident. Cranes were dispatched to the site to clear the wreckage and restore the tracks. The accident took place in the area between Kafr Ammar and Al-Raqqa stations in Al-Ayyat. This location holds a grim history for the country's railways, as it is close to the site of Egypt's deadliest train disaster in February 2002.
In the 2002 incident, a fire broke out on a passenger train traveling from Cairo to Luxor. The train traveled approximately nine kilometers before stopping. Official reports indicated that more than 370 people were killed in that tragedy, though some estimates suggest the toll was higher. The region has seen other rail accidents in recent years, including two crashes in 2009 that resulted in dozens of additional deaths.
The latest disaster has intensified scrutiny on the management of the national rail system. On Sunday, there were public calls for the transport minister to resign in response to the deadly incident. The suspension of services highlights the dependency of the region on this specific rail corridor for connectivity between the capital and southern provinces.
