Seventy people were injured late Wednesday when a Cairo-bound train crashed into a concrete barrier after it derailed in Beni Suef.
A trailer wagon and two passenger carriers attached to it turned over during the collision. A railway source said movement was halted on the Cairo-Upper Egypt lines to facilitate rescue efforts.
Mahmoud al-Esheiri, Benu Suef’s security chief, blamed the accident on the train’s engineer who he claims was speeding through a level crossing.
There were 640 train accidents in the first half of 2015 that killed 42 people. Both statistics mark an increase compared to 2014, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics said in its report last December on car and train accidents.
Expired level crossing managing systems have been at the center of most train accidents.
The Egyptian National Railways said last October that it had updated 411 level crossings across the republic at a cost of LE650 million as part of a broader scheme to enhance the management of the facilities and address fatal accidents.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
