Fatal train crash in Fayoum

Hend Kortam
4 Min Read
Crowds gather at the scene of a train collision in Fayoum. (PHOTO BY MOHAMED OMAR)
Crowds gather at the scene of a train collision in Fayoum. (PHOTO BY MOHAMED OMAR)
Crowds gather at the scene of a train collision in Fayoum. (PHOTO BY MOHAMED OMAR)

A head-on train collision in Fayoum left three dead and dozens injured on Saturday night.

Mahmoud Abdel-Meguid, head of the operations room in the governorate of Fayoum confirmed three people had died and 43 were injured in the incident, which took place at six at night.

Of the injured, “19 received first aid treatment and were discharged,” Abel-Meguid said.  He added that six were taken to Cairo and five were moved to a hospital in Al-Haram suburb of Giza and that 18 remain hospitalised in Fayoum.

“We were expecting more injuries… we got ambulances from Beni Sueif and 6 October but we handled the situation in record time,” he said.

Heba Yassin, the media spokesperson of the Popular Current said, “we hold [Prime Minister] Hisham Qandil’s government fully responsible for the crash.”

“It seems that Morsy and his government are busy with the constitution and the elections but this should not come at the expense of the people’s demands and the rights of the poor,” she added.

“We condemn the negligence… the trains were on the same line for one and a half hour and no one warned the drivers,” she said. She described what happened as “disrespectful.”

Yassin offered her condolences to all the families of the people who died in the crash, who she described as martyrs.  She demanded that officials are held accountable for the crash, “starting from the minister of transportation all the way to the head of the Railways Authority and everyone who led to the spilling of blood.”

Yassin said that the medical care that the injured received in the Fayoum General Hospital and the Fayoum University Hospital was very poor, and that the situation would have been worse if it weren’t for the people of Fayoum who donated blood.

Yassin was very upset with the conditions of the trains and the lack of maintenance which has left the trains “rickety and dilapidated.” She also described the trains as, “the only method of transportation for Egypt’s poor to travel.”

The Karama party has similarly issued a statement offering condolences to the families of the injured and dead, adding that paying attention to the demands of the people and providing them with food and humane methods of transportation is the core of Sharia’a (Islamic jurisprudence).

The party demanded an investigation into the crash and that the premier improves public transportation in Egypt. The party also warned that the metro suffers from grave negligence.

According to the state-run news agency Mena, Qandil is following news about the crash minute by minute. However at the time of writing there was no official statement from President Mohamed Morsy, Qandil or the official spokesperson for the president, Yasser Ali.

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