Ambulances rushed to the site of a train collision in central Egypt on Friday (March 26), which left at least 32 people dead and 91 injured, according the health ministry officials.
“Unknown individuals” triggered the emergency brakes on one of the trains causing it to stop, the rail authority said. The second train, which was travelling in the same direction, crashed into the first from behind, it added.
Pictures showed train carriages derailed, several of them badly damaged, above a channel of water, as crowds looked on.
The public prosecutor’s office said it had ordered an investigation into the crash which took place close to the Nile-side town of Tahta, about 365 km (230 miles) south of Cairo.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi mourned the victims of the crash in a statement posted on his official social media and said those responsible would be punished.
Egypt has one of the oldest and largest rail networks in the region and accidents involving casualties are common.
In the country’s worst train disaster, a fire tore through seven carriages of an overcrowded passenger train in 2002, killing at least 360 people.
(Production: Khaled Hassan Soliman, Imad Creidi, Yara Abi Nader)