bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Associated Press

Two passenger trains collided on Friday just outside Egypt’s Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, killing 43 people in the country’s deadliest rail accident in more than a decade, officials said.
Magdy Hegazy, a top health official in Alexandria, said that along with the 43 killed, the crash also injured 122 people.
The Egyptian Railways Authority said earlier that a train coming from Cairo, Egypt’s capital, crashed into the back of a train that was waiting at a small station in the district of Khorshid, just east of Alexandria.
The stationary train had just arrived from Port Said, a Mediterranean city on the northern tip of the Suez Canal, when it was hit, according to the statement.
The statement did not say what caused the accident, only that the authority’s experts would investigate.


Footage from the scene showed mangled train coaches on the tracks and several others derailed as hundreds of onlookers and victims’ relatives gathered around on both sides of the tracks.
Ambulances were standing by and riot police and soldiers were deployed to keep the onlookers away from the scene of the disaster. Residents from nearby homes rushed to the scene to look for survivors inside crushed train carriages or offer first aid to the injured.
An eyewitness who lives close to the crash site said he and others ran toward the site when they heard the sound of the impact.
“We ran to the scene and we found people jumping from the train and lots of dead,” said Abdel-Bari Abdel-Hamid.

By nightfall, cranes aided by floodlights began to remove the wreckage off the tracks to allow rail traffic to resume. Rescue teams, meanwhile, continued to look for more bodies and injured passengers inside the carriages.
Egypt’s railway system has a poor safety record, mostly blamed on decades of badly maintained equipment and poor management.
Friday’s crash was the latest in a series of deadly accidents that have claimed hundreds of lives over the years.

Figures recently released by the state’s statistics agency show that 1,249 train accidents took place last year, the highest number since 2009 when the number reached 1,577.
Friday’s accident was the deadliest rail accident since 2006, when at least 51 people were killed when two commuter trains collided near Cairo.
And earlier, in 2002, a massive fire engulfed a train filled with local holiday travellers. The train sped for miles, with flames engulfing one carriage after another, killing more than 370 people.

In November 2012, a speeding train crashed into a bus carrying Egyptian children to their kindergarten in the country’s south, killing more than 50, mostly children between the ages of four and six. Two months later, at least 19 people died and more than 100 were injured in a train derailment south of Cairo.


Dozens dead, more than 100 injured in deadliest train crash in Egypt in a decade

The train crash site in Alexandria province, Egypt where 43 people died. Photo: Xinhua

(170811) -- ALEXANDRIA (EGYPT), Aug. 11, 2017 (Xinhua) -- Photo taken on Aug. 11, 2017 shows the train crash site in Alexandria province, Egypt. At least 36 people were killed and more than 123 others were injured Friday in a crash between two trains in Egypt's Alexandria province, Egypt's Health Ministry said. (Xinhua/Asmaa Abdelatif)

(170811) -- ALEXANDRIA (EGYPT), Aug. 11, 2017 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian security forces gather at the train crash site in Alexandria province, Egypt, on Aug. 11, 2017. At least 36 people were killed and more than 123 others were injured Friday in a crash between two trains in Egypt's Alexandria province, Egypt's Health Ministry said. (Xinhua/Asmaa Abdelatif)

(170811) -- ALEXANDRIA (EGYPT), Aug. 11, 2017 (Xinhua) -- People gather at the train crash site in Alexandria province, Egypt, on Aug. 11, 2017. At least 36 people were killed and more than 123 others were injured Friday in a crash between two trains in Egypt's Alexandria province, Egypt's Health Ministry said. (Xinhua/Asmaa Abdelatif)

News

World

Middle East