Train derails in northern Egypt, killing 2, injuring 16

CAIRO (AP) — A passenger train derailed Tuesday north of Cairo, killing at least two people and injuring 16 others, Egyptian authorities said. It was the latest in a series of rail accidents in the country in recent years.

The train went off its tracks as it traveled through a station in the city of Qalyub on its way to the city of Menouf in the Nile Delta, state prosecutors said in a statement. They said they had opened an investigation into the cause of the crash.

At least 20 ambulances were dispatched and the injured were transferred to hospitals, health authorities said.

Videos of the aftermath posted on Facebook showed crowds of people and emergency services gathering around the rail cars, which had remained upright. In other footage, passengers were seen being pulled from the wreckage through rail-car windows.

Train derailments and crashes are common in Egypt, where the railway system which has a history of mismanagement and poor maintenance of equipment. In recent years, the government announced modernization initiatives to improve its railways.

In 2018, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said some 250 billion Egyptian pounds, or $8.13 billion, would be needed to properly overhaul the North African country’s neglected rail network.

In 2021, two trains collided in the southern Egyptian city of Tahta, killing 32 people. Later that year, a train derailed in the Qalyubia province, killing 11 people.

Egypt’s deadliest train crash was in 2002, when more than 300 people were killed after a fire broke out on an overnight train journeying from Cairo to southern Egypt.