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Trains Collide North of Cairo, Killing at Least 80 in Egypt
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?r=279&ctl=1395E27:A6F02AD83191E160284B4DF1190BD8389574F7DCC14957C0 Collision happened
early this Monday morning near the town of Qalyoub, in the Nile Delta
region





People gather at the site of a train crash in rail station of Qalyoub,
north of Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Aug. 21, 2006

A train collision outside Cairo killed at least 80 people and injured
160 others, early Monday.

Details of the accident are still unclear, but officials say that one
train rammed into the other, outside Qalyoub station, 20 kilometers
from Cairo, causing a fire and overturning several cars. Both trains
were traveling from the Nile Delta to Cairo - one from Mansoura and
one from Benha. The train was crowded with commuters. The state news
agency reports that passengers were about to disembark from the Benha
train when the Mansoura train barreled into it.

Qalyoub Governor Adly Hussein says the Mansoura train was speeding and
the driver had ignored train signals outside the Benha railway
station.

Television footage shows rescuers sawing the crumpled train cars, in
efforts to pull out the dead still trapped under wreckage.  The scene
was strewn with clothes and shoes and chairs ripped out of the
carriages by the impact. 

Egypt has seen several major train accidents this year, including a
collision in February near Alexandria that injured 20 people.

Egypt's deadliest railway disaster was in (February) 2002, when a fire
swept through a crowded passenger train and killed 360 people.


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