At least three were killed and at least 40 injured when two trains collided in Egypt’s Zigazag city in the Nile Delta area Saturday. Photo by Ahmed Elbagra/EPA-EFE
Sept. 14 (UPI) — At least three died, including two children, and at least 40 were injured when two passenger trains collided in the Nile Delta area in northeastern Egypt on Saturday.
The collision occurred in the city of Zagazig in Egypt’s Al Sharkia province and crumpled one passenger car, Egypt Today reported.
First responders assisted injured passengers through the windows of damaged train cars.
Rescue operations are ongoing with those injured being taken to nearby Al-Ahrar and Zagazig hospitals, Egypt’s Ministry of Health reported.
One train was destined for Ismailia from Zigazag while the other was destined for Zigazag from Mansoura.
Thirty ambulances and several medical teams responded to the accident scene while crowds of people gathered.
Egypt’s rail system is in a state of decay and has recorded at least one deadly accident every year over the past 20 years.
Egypt reported 2,044 train accidents in 2018 and 1,793 in 2019, Egypt’s Central Agency for Mobilization and Statistics reported.
A train collision in 2021 killed at least 32 and injured 165. Another 25 people died while dozens were injured during a 2019 accident in which a train collided with a platform that caused a fuel tank to explode.
Egypt is in the process of improving its rail network, which serves about 270 million passengers annually and about 1.4 million daily.