Africa

Seven dead as two trains collide south of Cairo

Stationary Cairo–Aswan train struck from behind with passengers trapped in carriages, second train collision in same district in two months

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People at the scene of the collision in Giza province. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images People at the scene of the collision in Giza province. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images theguardian.com
People search for survivors after the collision. Photograph: AP People search for survivors after the collision. Photograph: AP theguardian.com

Seven people were killed and more than 100 injured when two trains collided south of Cairo on Sunday. The crash occurred in the al-Ayyat district of Giza province, about 30 miles from the capital, where a train travelling to Fayoum province ran into the rear of a Cairo–Aswan service that, according to the transport ministry, had been stationary on the same track. Officials have not said why the train was standing there.

Residents reached the wreckage before the emergency services. Ayman Gamal, from the village of Kafr Girza in al-Ayyat, told the Associated Press that people rushed to the scene, pulled survivors from the carriages and called ambulances; he counted about 80 of the injured being taken to hospital. Some passengers trapped inside a carriage of the stationary train died before they could be freed. President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said in a social media post that he had ordered a prompt investigation.

It is the second train collision in the same district in two months. Last September, two freight trains collided in al-Ayyat, injuring a driver and his assistant. Egypt's deadliest railway disaster remains the 2002 fire aboard an overnight train from Cairo to southern Egypt, which killed more than 300 people. A rear-end collision between two trains on the same track is a failure of whatever was supposed to keep them apart. In recent years the government has announced modernisation initiatives to improve the railways, and on Sunday an occupied passenger train stood on the track long enough for another service to run into it.

The Egyptian railway authority said emergency teams and cranes had been dispatched to clear the wreckage and restore train services to their normal schedule as soon as possible.