Northern Egypt practice derailment kills 2, injures 16

CAIRO (AP) — A passenger practice derailed Tuesday north of Cairo, killing no less than two folks and injuring 16 others, Egyptian authorities mentioned. It was the newest in a sequence of rail accidents within the nation in recent times.

The derailing occurred because the practice was touring via a station within the metropolis of Qalyub on its option to the town of Menouf within the Nile Delta, state prosecutors mentioned in an announcement. They mentioned that they had opened an investigation into the reason for the crash.

A minimum of 20 ambulances have been dispatched to the scene and the injured have been transferred to close by hospitals, well being authorities mentioned.

Movies of the aftermath of the collision posted on Fb confirmed crowds of individuals and emergency providers gathering across the rail vehicles, which remained upright after the derailing. In different footage, passengers have been seen being pulled from the wreckage via rail-car home windows.

Prepare derailments and crashes are widespread in Egypt, the place the railway system has a historical past of badly maintained tools and mismanagement. Lately, the federal government has introduced modernization initiatives to enhance its railways.

In 2018, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi mentioned some 250 billion Egyptian kilos, or $8.13 billion, could be wanted to correctly overhaul the North African nation’s uncared for rail community.

In 2021, two trains collided within the southern Egyptian metropolis of Tahta, killing 32 folks. Later that 12 months, a practice derailed within the Qalyubia province, killing 11 folks.

Egypt’s deadliest practice crash was in 2002, when greater than 300 folks have been killed after a hearth broke out in an in a single day practice journeying from Cairo to southern Egypt.