TAHTA, Egypt: Egypt buried the dead Saturday from a train collision that killed at least 19 people and injured 185, according to a revised toll, as investigators probed the country’s latest deadly rail crash.
Health Minister Hala Zayed told reporters that an initial toll of 32 killed in Friday’s crash was revised down, while the number of injured rose from 165.
“After we honed in on the details of those killed and injured... at this moment there are 185 injured and 19 corpses and three bags of body parts,” Zayed said, without giving further details.
Surveillance camera footage of the accident seen by AFP showed a speeding train barrelling into another as it rolled slowly down the tracks, sending a carriage hurtling into the air in a cloud of dust.
Most of those injured in Friday’s crash that occurred in the Tahta district of southern Sohag province suffered fractures.
The first victims were laid to rest early on Saturday with small groups of family and friends in attendance as residents, who appeared mistrustful of outsiders, kept the media at bay.
Other burials were expected to take place following mid-day Muslim prayers, an AFP reporter said.
President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi pledged tough punishment for those responsible for the crash, the latest in a series of rail accidents to plague Egypt. Such incidents are generally attributed to poor infrastructure and maintenance.
It came as the most populous Arab nation struggles with another major transport challenge — a giant container ship blocking the Suez Canal, a vital shipping lane for international trade.
Early on Saturday Egypt was again struck by tragedy when a building collapsed in the capital Cairo, killing at least five people and injuring 24 others, according to officials.
At the scene of the rail disaster, technicians worked through Friday evening to remove five dislocated and damaged carriages. By morning the crash area was cleared of twisted metal and debris.
Rail traffic also resumed ahead of the burials.
Witnesses and survivors recounted horrifying scenes.
“We were at the mosque then a child came and told us (about the incident). We heard the collision, so we rushed and found the carnage,” said a 59-year-old man speaking on condition of anonymity.
The first ambulances to reach the scene arrived “around half an hour” after the crash, he said.
“There were children who removed (debris) using wooden ladders,” added the witness, who spent the day helping rescue workers.
One train was traveling between the southern city of Luxor and Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, and the other between the southern city of Aswan and Cairo.
Kamel Nagi, a 20-year-old conscript, was on the Cairo-bound train after enjoying a few days of leave.
“Our train suddenly stopped and a quarter of an hour later, the second arrived and struck us,” said Nagi, who suffered multiple broken bones.
“I saw it coming, screamed, then found myself on the ground in great pain,” he said from his hospital bed as a nurse gave him an injection to alleviate his pain.
Authorities opened an investigation to determine the circumstances of the accident, while the rail authority blamed the crash on unidentified passengers who “activated emergency brakes” in one train.
The prosecution said it would interrogate several rail employees, including the two train drivers, their assistants and the signalman.
They will also have to undergo drug testing and their mobile phones have been seized by the authorities to examine their call logs, it added.
But media reports on Saturday claimed both train drivers had died of injuries sustained in the crash.
The rail authority said one train hit the last carriage of the other, causing at least two carriages to overturn between the stations of Maragha and Tahta.
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli said the government will disburse 100,000 Egyptian pounds (around $6,400) to each family who lost a loved one and between 20,000-40,000 to those injured.
The government has spent “hundreds of billions of pounds” to upgrade the railway system over the past four years, he said, acknowledging that the network “has suffered from decades of negligence.”
Egypt’s railway network is one of the oldest in Africa and the Middle East and improving it “will take time,” Madbouli told reporters Friday after visiting the crash site.
“Until then accidents like this can happen,” he said, adding that efforts to upgrade the system have been hampered by the coronavirus pandemic which has delayed deals with foreign firms.
One of the deadliest Egyptian train crashes came in 2002, when 373 people died as a fire ripped through a crowded train south of Cairo.
Egypt buries train crash dead, toll revised to 19
https://arab.news/yrzxj
Egypt buries train crash dead, toll revised to 19
- The ministry had announced on Friday that 32 people had been killed and 165 hospitalised
- There were 19 corpses retrieved from the scene, but health minister says they also have three bags of body parts
US military visits contested area in northern Syria to defuse rising tensions
- US has good relations with both sides and has urged calm
DEIR HAFER, Syria: A US military delegation arrived in a contested area of northern Syria on Friday following rising tensions between the Syrian government and a Kurdish-led force that controls much of the northeast.
The US has good relations with both sides and has urged calm. A spokesperson for the US military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier in the day, scores of people carrying their belongings arrived in government-held areas in northern Syria ahead of a possible offensive by Syrian troops on territory held by Kurdish-led fighters east of the city of Aleppo.
Many of the civilians who fled were seen using side roads to reach government-held areas because the main highway was blocked by a checkpoint in the town of Deir Hafer normally controlled by the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
The Syrian army said late Wednesday that civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and then extended the evacuation period another day. The announcement appeared to signal plans for an offensive against the SDF in the area.
There have been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides.
Men, women and children arrived in cars and pickup trucks that were packed with bags of clothes, mattresses and other belongings. They were met by local officials who directed them to shelters.
In other areas, people crossed canals on small boats and crossed a heavily damaged pedestrian bridge to reach the side held by government forces.
The SDF closed the main highway but more than 11,000 people were still able to reach government-held areas on other roads, Syrian state TV reported.
A US military convoy arrived in Deir Hafer in the early afternoon accompanied by SDF officials. Associated Press journalists saw SDF leaders and American officials enter one of the government buildings, where they met inside for more than an hour before departing the area.
Inside Deir Hafer, many shops were closed and people stayed home.
“When I saw people leaving I came here,” said Umm Talal, who arrived in the government-held area with her husband and children. She added that the road appeared safe and her husband plans to return to their home.
Abu Mohammed said he came from the town of Maskana after hearing the government had opened a safe corridor, “only to be surprised when we arrived at Deir Hafer and found it closed.”
SDF fighters were preventing people from crossing through Syria’s main east-west highway and forcing them to take a side road, he said.
Kortay Khalil, an SDF official at the Deir Hafer the checkpoint, said they had closed it because the government closed other crossings.
“This crossing was periodically closed even before these events, but people are leaving through other routes, and we are not preventing them,” he said. “If we wanted to prevent them, no one would be able to leave the area.”
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo, previously Syria’s largest city and commercial center, that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from three neighborhoods north of the city that were then taken over by government forces.
The fighting broke out as negotiations stalled between Damascus and the SDF over an agreement reached in March to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
The US special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, posted on X on Friday that Washington remains in close contact with all parties in Syria, “working around the clock to lower the temperature, prevent escalation, and return to integration talks between the Syrian government and the SDF.”
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with Kurdish separatist insurgents in Turkiye.
