Train crashes into traffic in Egypt and kills 2, official says

CAIRO (AP) — A train on Egypt’s northern coast crashed into traffic on Wednesday, killing two people and injuring two others, the local governor’s office said.

The crash, in the city of Borg el Arab located to the west of Alexandria, was due to a truck being on the tracks when they were meant to be closed for the transit of a passenger train, the statement from the Alexandria governor’s office said.

The train, coming from the town of El-Dabaa, was derailed by the collision.

Train derailments and crashes are common in Egypt, where an aging railway system has also been plagued by mismanagement. In recent years, the government announced initiatives to improve its railways.

In 2018, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said some 250 billion Egyptian pounds, or $8.13 billion, would be needed to properly overhaul the North African country’s neglected rail network.

In 2021, two trains collided in the southern Egyptian city of Tahta, killing 32 people. Later that year, a train derailed in Qalyubia province, killing 11 people.

Egypt’s deadliest train crash was in 2002, when more than 300 people were killed after a fire broke out on an overnight train journeying from Cairo to southern Egypt.