CAIRO — A passenger train derailed Friday on a railway track south of Cairo, wounding at least 55 people, Egyptian officials said.
The accident took place when three of the train’s carriages derailed at a station close to Giza, Egypt’s railway authority said. It added that lifting tools, cranes and maintenance teams were dispatched to the site.
READ MORE: Passenger train crash in Egypt leaves at least 12 dead, dozens injured
It was not immediately clear what caused the derailment.
Ahmed al-Ansari, the ambulance authority head, said as many as 55 people were wounded and taken to hospital for treatment. There were no immediate reports of fatalities.
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Egypt’s railway system has a poor safety record, mostly blamed on decades of badly maintained equipment and poor management. Figures by Egypt’s official statistics agency show that 1,793 train accidents took place in 2017.
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In March, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said the government lacks about 250 billion Egyptian pounds, or $14.1 billion, to overhaul the country’s run-down railway system.
READ MORE: At least 69 injured in train derailment in Egypt
His remarks came a day after a passenger train collided with a cargo train in Egypt, killing at least 12 people, including a child.
Last August, two passenger trains collided just outside Egypt’s Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, killing 43 people, the country’s deadliest rail accident in more than a decade.
In 2006, at least 51 people were killed when two commuter trains collided near Cairo.
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