Twenty-seven people died and 18 others were wounded when three microbuses collided on the desert road in Edfu, Aswan, early Monday.
President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi ordered authorities to hasten with providing medical care for the injured and directed the government to run an immediate probe into the accident.
According to the investigations, two microbuses carrying workers at Lake Nasser were heading to Aswan before the tires of the first vehicle exploded, causing it to turn over, collide with the other car behind and a third microbus.
Most of the victims were from the province of Fayoum.
Aswan’s health department chief, Mamdouh Weshahy, said the injured’s conditions were stable, with the injuries varying between breaks, bruises, bleedings and concussions.
The annual report of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) on car and train accidents showed a significant increase in 2013 compared to 2012.
There were 15,578 car accidents in 2013 that claimed the lives of 6,716 people and injured 22,411 others, an increase of 0.4 percent from 2012 where there were 15,516 accidents that killed 6,424 people and injured 21,608 others.
Also, there were 781 train accidents in 2013 versus 447 in 2012, an increase of 75 percent attributed to faults in crossings.
The report also showed that 50 percent or 3,200 fatalities of the death toll were young people killed every year on the roads.
Human error accounted for 65 percent of the causes, followed by 18 percent from technical conditions of vehicles.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
