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Train Crash in Egypt Kills at Least 12 | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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CAIRO, Egypt, AP – Two passenger trains collided in northern Egypt on Monday, killing at least 26 people and injuring 131, railway officials said.

Adly Hussein, governor of Qalyoubia province where the accident occurred, told Egyptian state television that two trains carrying commuters headed for Cairo collided at about 7:45 a.m. in the town of Qalyoub, 12 miles north of the capital.

Four cars derailed and overturned, forcing officials to close the lines from the Nile Delta cities of Benha and Mansoura, where the trains originated.

Egypt has a history of serious train accidents, which are usually blamed on poorly maintained equipment. Many of those incidents have occurred in the Nile Delta, north of the capital.

The most recent accident in February saw 20 people injured when two trains collided at a Nile Delta station.

Egypt’s worst train disaster in February 2002 killed 363 people, many of them headed home to the country’s south for the Islamic calendar’s most important holiday.