CAIRO, Nov 8 (Reuters) – Two passenger trains collided some 76 km (47 miles) south of Cairo on Sunday, killing at least seven people and injuring 112, Egypt’s health ministry said.
The state railway authority said a train travelling from Giza to Fayoum hit the back of another heading from Cairo to Aswan, derailing several carriages.
Emergency crews were clearing the wreckage to restore services on the Cairo-Upper Egypt line, the railway authority said, without giving any indication of how long this would take.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered a swift investigation and said anyone found negligent should be held accountable, according to a separate statement.
Egypt’s public prosecutor’s office said investigations were underway to determine the technical reasons behind the crash.
Egypt has one of the oldest and largest railway networks in the region and accidents involving casualties are common, though the government has been investing billions of Egyptian pounds to modernise the network.
In the country’s worst-ever rail disaster, a fire tore through seven carriages of an overcrowded passenger service in 2002, killing at least 360 people.
(Reporting by Muhammad Al Gebaly and Mohamed Ezz and Menna Alaa El-Din; Editing by David Holmes)
