Egypt: Four dead in train crash

Four people were killed and 23 wounded after a passenger train slammed into the buffers at a station north of Cairo, the Health ministry announced Wednesday.

The crash took place Tuesday in the city of Qalyub. Authorities say the driver had overshot the station and run into the buffers at the end of the track after passing through a stop signal.

“That led to the derailment of the locomotive and the first carriage,” the National Railways Authority said. Pictures from the scene showed emergency crews using a crane to lift the derailed coach that appeared to be partially crumpled.

The crash is the latest in a spate of deadly accidents on Egypt’s rail network that have mostly been blamed on ageing infrastructure and poor maintenance. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has vowed to hold to account those responsible for recurrent deadly accidents on Egypt’s railways.

In March 2021, at least 20 people died and nearly 200 were injured in a train crash in southern Egypt.