World

Egypt Train Derailment Kills 50

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 19, 1998 / 9:04 AM EDT / CBS

Rescue teams found five more bodies Monday after a train jumped its tracks and crashed through shops in a town in northern Egypt. By unofficial count, at least 52 people were killed.

Another 101 people were injured when the train derailed Sunday in Kafr el-Dawar, according to health official Nabih Yousef Shaltout. The town is 19 miles southeast of Alexandria.

Egypt's Interior Ministry said a technical mission's report on the cause of the crash was expected later in the day.

The crowded train, with extra passengers perched on the locomotive's roof, had been travelling from Alexandria towards the Delta town of Kafr el-Sheikh.

A giant crane hoisted the last three cars of the train early Monday, revealing five more mangled bodies. Later, authorities called off the search for survivors.

Shaltout had said before the last bodies were found that there were 47 fatalities. The new death toll was not immediately confirmed by authorities.

Shaltout said most of the dead were bystanders in the town, while most of the injured were passengers. Residents who helped take the casualties to hospitals said they saw well over 50 bodies.

A teenager who saw the crash, Hany Roushdy, said the train was moving very fast. "It did not seem to be able to stop. It shot off the tracks and went toward the town square," he said.

The train crashed through a wall beside the railway, hit a war memorial in the square and slammed into several shops, witnesses said.

"All there was were chunks of flesh," said resident Hamdi Kamel, as a mangled victim was removed from the wreckage.

A businessman in the square, Mustafa Attiya, said he heard girls screaming. "I turned around and saw the train shoot across and hit the girls."

The most serious recent accident on Egyptian railways came in December 1995 when two trains collided in fog south of Cairo, killing 75 people and injuring 76.