Egypt: seven killed, more than 112 injured in train crash near Cairo

At least seven people were killed and more than 112 injured in a train crash on Sunday in Giza province, on the outskirts of Egypt's capital Cairo, the country's health ministry said.

A passenger train travelling from Giza towards Fayoum rammed the rear of another train ahead of it on the Cairo-Aswan line, officials said. The collision threw the leading train off the track onto a rural road in the Al-Ayyat district, and carriages overturned.

Egypt's national railway authority said emergency rescue teams and cranes were sent to the scene to clear the wreckage and return train services to normal quickly.

Officials said more than 70 ambulances were deployed to take the injured to nearby hospitals.

Al-Ayyat district was also the site of Egypt's worst train disaster: in 2002, more than 370 people died in a fire that swept through a train carrying holiday travellers south of Cairo, and several crashes in the area killed dozens more in 2009.

Most of Egypt's 110 million people rely heavily on rail travel, yet the country's network, one of Africa's largest, is in need of modernisation.

Egypt has invested billions of dollars over the past decade in transport infrastructure, including highways and high-speed rail lines, but much of its older train services remain unupgraded.