Egypt train crash kills 51

EGYPT: Fifty-one people were killed on Monday when two trains travelling on the same track collided in northern Egypt in the country's deadliest rail crash in four years.

Two carriages were derailed in a tangle of torn metal as one train slammed into the back of another. Another 138 passengers mostly farmers or government workers commuting to Cairo were injured in the crash which also set one train ablaze.

"The number of casualties has been established at 51 dead and 138 injured," said Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali, quoted by the government news agency MENA.

Earlier, a security source told AFP at the scene that rescue workers had extricated at least 43 bodies from the twisted remains of the two carriages as cranes were brought in to help lift the wreckage.

Hundreds of onlookers and would-be rescuers crowded at the crash site at Qaliub, 20 kilometres (13 miles) north of the capital.

The security source said one train had been heading for Cairo from Mansura 130 kilometres (80 miles) north of the capital while the other, on the same line, was coming from Benha, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north. Preliminary findings of a police investigation into the cause of the crash suggested that the train coming from Mansura ignored a light and rammed the back of the other train.

Cairo, Monday, AFP.