Train Collision In Northern Egypt Kills 43; 122 Injured

Two trains collided in Egypt on Friday leading to loss of over forty lives and hundred casualties. (Image: AP)

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.

Associated Press 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.

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.

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.