Egypt’s health ministry says a train accident on Sunday which occurred north of Cairo, has killed at least 11 people and left 98 others injured, in the latest rail calamity.
In an updated toll, the ministry, said the train accident occurred in Toukh which is a small farming town in the fertile Nile Delta about 40 kilometres outside the capital.
In the meantime, dozens of ambulances were dispatched to the site, the health ministry added, and investigators have been sent to determine the accident’s cause.
In a statement Egypt’s cabinet said that four carriages of the train heading from Cairo to Mansoura, a Delta city, came off the tracks but authorities have not yet provided a reason for Sunday’s derailment.
The latest incident, comes on the heels of a deadly train crash which happened last month that left at least 20 people dead and President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has tasked the military’s engineering authority to investigate the accident.
According to security sources, the driver and other rail officials had been detained for questioning and the ministry said 14 people who sustained minor injuries have been released from a hospital close to the accident site.
At least 20 people died and 199 were injured last month in a train crash in the country’s south, according to the latest official toll, which authorities have revised several times.
Analysts say Egyptian rail disasters are generally attributed to poor infrastructure and maintenance.
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