Egypt military’s engineering authority to probe killer train crash

A train accident north of Cairo on Sunday left 11 people dead and 98 others injured, Egypt’s health ministry said, in the latest rail calamity to hit the North African country, AFP reported.

The ministry, in an updated toll, said that “11 people were killed and 98 others injured in a train accident in Toukh,” a small farming town in the fertile Nile Delta about 40 km outside the capital, AFP reported.

Egypt’s Cabinet said in a statement that four carriages of the train heading from Cairo to Mansoura, a Delta city, came off the tracks, AFP reported.

Dozens of ambulances were dispatched to the site, the health ministry added, and investigators have been sent to determine the accident’s cause.

President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi tasked the military’s engineering authority on Sunday with investigating the latest incident, which came on the heels of a deadly train crash last month that left at least 20 people dead.

Authorities have not yet provided a reason for Sunday’s derailment.

A security source told AFP the driver and other rail officials had been detained for questioning.