19 killed as train derails in Egypt
2013-01-15 07:54
Cairo - A military train carrying young recruits to an army
camp derailed in a Cairo suburb on Tuesday, killing 19 people and injuring 107,
Egypt's health ministry spokesperson said.
The train was travelling from Upper Egypt to Cairo when it
derailed in the Giza neighbourhood of Badrashin, a security source said, adding
that the train was a military vehicle carrying conscripted youth on their way
to an army camp.
The injured passengers were taken to hospitals, Ahmed Omar,
the health ministry spokesperson, told the state news agency MENA.
There was no further information available about the
identities of the 17 dead except the names of the hospitals to which their
corpses were sent, published on MENA.
"The Egyptian Ambulance Authority has sent 66 ambulance
cars to the site of the accident to move the bodies of the injured and the
corpses of the victims to hospitals," Omar told MENA.
Egypt's roads and railways have a poor safety record, and
Egyptians have long complained that successive governments have failed to
enforce even basic safeguards, leading to a string of deadly crashes.
In November, at least 50 people, mostly children, were
killed when a train slammed into a school bus at a rail crossing south of
Cairo, further inflaming public anger at Egypt's shoddy transport network.
