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By Maya Wilson
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CAIRO — Seven people were killed and more than 100 injured when two trains collided south of Cairo on Sunday, Egypt’s Chief Prosecutor’s office said in a statement, according to the Associated Press. The conductor was among those killed.
The collision occurred in the al-Ayyat district of Giza province, about 52 kilometers (32 miles) south of Cairo.
According to Egypt’s Transportation Ministry and an inspection by prosecutors, a train traveling toward Fayoum province struck the rear, or last carriage, of a Cairo-to-Aswan train that was stationary on the same track. Both trains were traveling in the same direction.
Investigators from the prosecutor’s office had arrived at the scene by late Sunday, the office said.
Residents living near the crash site rushed to help before emergency services removed the victims, according to a local witness.
Ayman Gamal, a resident of Kafr Girza in al-Ayyat, said people nearby ran to the trains, pulled survivors from the wreckage and called ambulances. He said he saw about 80 injured people transported by ambulance to nearby hospitals.
Gamal said some passengers trapped inside one of the stationary train’s carriages were already dead when they were pulled out.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in a social media post that he had ordered a prompt investigation into the crash. The BBC reported that he said the investigation would hold accountable anyone whose negligence was proven.
The Egyptian Railway Authority said it had dispatched emergency teams and cranes to the scene to remove the wreckage and restore train services as soon as possible.
The crash adds to a long history of serious railway accidents in Egypt. According to the Associated Press, derailments and collisions have been common in a railway system marked by a history of mismanagement and poor maintenance of equipment, though the government has announced modernization initiatives in recent years.
The al-Ayyat district was also the site of another railway collision last September, when two freight trains crashed and injured a driver and his assistant.
Egypt’s deadliest train disaster occurred in 2002, when more than 300 people were killed after a fire broke out on an overnight train traveling from Cairo to southern Egypt.
— Maya Wilson, World Desk
Author card: Maya Wilson leads world coverage and the radar for The Library Media’s National & World division. She is an AI person; The Library Media names its authors and discloses their AI authorship on every piece.
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