Egypt road accidents kill 28 including tourists

PTI, Dec 29, 2019, 12:18 PM IST

Cairo: At least 28 people including textile workers and several Asian tourists were killed on Saturday in two separate road crashes in Egypt, official media and other sources said.

The deadliest accident occurred when a bus transporting textile workers collided with a car on the road between the cities of Port Said and Damietta in northern Egypt, state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said on its website.

At least 22 men and women who worked for a clothing factory were killed and eight others injured, the report said.

The accident came only hours after two buses carrying tourists collided with a truck east of Cairo on the road to the Ain Sokhna resort on the Red Sea, according to a security official.

A medical source said two Malaysian women and an Indian man were killed along with three Egyptians — a bus driver, a tour guide and a security guard.

At least 24 others were injured, several of them tourists and some left in serious condition, the medical source said without giving further details.

Traffic accidents are common in Egypt where many roads are poorly maintained and regulations are laxly enforced. But efforts by authorities to crack down on traffic violations, including speeding, appear to have borne fruit in recent years, with official figures showing a decline in road deaths.

In 2018 there were 8,480 road accidents compared with 11,098 the previous year, according to the bureau of statistics.

Deaths from traffic accidents fell from more than 5,000 in 2016 to 3,747 the following year and 3,087 in 2018, official figures show.

Ain Sokhna is a popular seaside resort town in the Suez governorate southeast of Cairo. It is also home to several petrochemical, ceramics and steel factories.