Egypt Watch

The second within 24 hours: Train collisions continue to take Egyptian lives

Egypt’s ministry of health announced, on Tuesday, that 40 citizens were injured after a train collided with a passenger carriage in North Alexandria’s railway station. “Twenty-seven ambulances were provided to transport the injured to three public hospitals,” said Khaled Mujahed, the spokesman of the ministry. “The injuries were mainly abrasions, bruises and fractures in different parts of the body.” Eyewitnesses said that the train collided with the last carriage of a passenger train when the former was leaving the station.

The Egyptian National Railways declared that the trains were not affected by the accident. The train driver and his assistant along with the observer were suspended and referred to the public prosecution.

In another accident, four workers died and 26 were injured after a goods train hit a workers’ bus in Helwan. Victims were transferred to Helwan and 15 May hospitals according to the ministry of health’s statement. Eyewitnesses said that a train carrying cans of coke hit a bus carrying workers at a clothes factory in Helwan and all the deaths and injuries were women.

Over the last two decades, railway accidents have taken the lives of hundreds of Egyptians. The Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics recorded 10,000 train accidents between 2013 and 2019, and the World Bank estimated, in December 2018, that Egypt needs to spend $10 billion on reforming its railways.