By DPA,
Cairo : At least 15 people were killed and 24 others injured Saturday when two trains collided in southern Egypt, police told DPA.
Police said rescue workers were still working to pull people from the site of the crash, near al-Ayat, and that the number of those confirmed dead and wounded in the accident was likely to rise.
The Ministry of Health had dispatched 80 ambulances to transport the injured to nearby hospitals, Egyptian cabinet spokesman Magdy Radi told DPA.
The trains were both travelling south, police said. One was travelling from Giza, just across the Nile from Cairo, to the oasis of al-Fayum, roughly 80 km southwest of the capital. The second was travelling from Cairo to the southern city of Assiut.
More than 350 people were killed in Feb 2002 when a train caught fire near al-Ayat, not far from the site of Saturday’s accident. Investigators at the time said that fire had been caused by a man using a propane cooking stove on the train.