Another Egyptian Train Disaster

Two trains collided this morning coming from delta during the morning rush hour at 7.15am. Number of deaths so far ranges from 51 as of 11.15am - 8.15 GMT, according to the Egyptian, and as many as 80 according to Egyptian Security sources who said so to BBC. About 160 were injured. Rescue and evacuations continue at this moment including the separations of the metal bodies of the trains. Main reasons behind the accident are attributed to the overspeeding of the second train or malfunction in the semaphores. Anyways, it is because of negligence and corruption. The victims are the poor people who are not seeking their rights and seem to be appeased by all the bad things happening to them.

As usual, president Mubarak is following the incident, instead of being proactive and fighting corruption and improving the affairs of his country. Rather he is busy with some more important issues.

Damn, these images from the deadly train accident in Badrasheen, more than 4 years ago is still vivid in my memory. 360 were burnt to death, although unofficial sources say upto a 1000 were perished.

Here is a link to Reuters article.
Better coverage, more info and tragic pictures can be found at the arabist.

Update: An eyewitness living at the site on Nile News said that the fire trucks were constraining the rescue efforts and it was a chaos when people gathered around to watch what is going on. Its a habbit when an accident happens that curiousity drives people to watch and hinder rescue efforts in many accidents.

1.00PM: number of deaths reach 56 according to health minister. It seems that they will catch up with the 80+ figure previously announced by security forces.





*Both Pictures from Reuters