At least 49 kindergarten children killed in collision between train and bus
The tragic accident has so far taken the lives of nearly 50 children.
Photo: Mamdouh Thabet / AP
At least 49 Egyptian children died in an accident in which a bus was hit by a train south of Cairo Saturday.
The accident happened in the town Manfalut, near Assiut, said the state news agency.
The children were aged four to six years. Also, the bus driver and an adult woman should have died.
Boom stood
- The death toll has now reached 49 There are 18 wounded, said provincial governor Yehya Keshk to state television.
The reports of the death toll vary, and many of the children are not yet accounted for.
Relatives flocked to the site to look for their children.
Photo: Mamdouh Thabet / AP
Tears of parents go along the railroad track to look after their children.Journalists on site describing the gruesome scenes of dead and injured children on the ground.
The cause of the accident was likely that the barriers at a railway crossing should not have lowered the train passed.
According to news agency AFP booms were manually operated, but the man who was responsible for lowering them were asleep when the bus tried to cross the track.
- He is of course arrested, says Keshk.
The train pushed the bus in front of him for nearly a mile before the bus split in two.
- Minister resigns
Railway in Egypt are generally in poor condition, partly because of poor maintenance and management.
Earlier this people lost their lives and dozens were injured when two trains collided in the Fayyum province.
The country's worst train accident so far occurred in the village of Al-Ayyat in 2002, when a gas tank on board the train's kitchen exploded.
Both Egypt's transport minister and head of the railway authorities have resigned from their jobs as a direct result of today's accident.
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