4 killed in Zagazig in another train collision

Four people were killed and over 49 were injured due to a train collision in Zagazig, Sharqiya on Saturday evening, according to news reports. 

Three deaths were confirmed by the Health Ministry on Saturday evening, while the fourth was reported by the domestic press on Sunday. 

The Health Ministry issued a statement on Saturday saying that most of those injured have been discharged from the hospital except for eight cases.

The incident has heightened scrutiny on the development of the national transport system by Transportation Minister Kamal al-Wazir, who was appointed following the dismissal of his predecessor in the wake of a mass casualty train crash in Cairo in 2019.

The two passenger trains collided on Saturday evening, the eve of Mawlid al-Nabi. The national railway authority said that one of the trains was leaving Cairo to Ismailia, while the other had departed from Mansoura and was bound for Cairo.

The Health Ministry said it dispatched 39 ambulances to the scene of the crash to transfer those injured to the Ahrar and Zagazig University hospitals, as well as a private medical facility in Zagazig. The ministry added in its statement that while most of the injured were discharged from the hospital, eight are still under medical supervision. 

Fatal crashes are frequent in Egypt’s railway network, though they dropped slightly in the years following 2018, according to the national statistics agency. Yet the rate of fatalities per incident has increased. Statistics show that train crash-related deaths have gone up from an average of 59.1 in 2019 up to 101.2 in 2023.

Speaking from the scene of the incident on Saturday evening, Wazir downplayed the scale of the crash, saying “the ambulances came in more numbers than necessary, which made people feel that the accident was very big.” 

When 44 passengers are in a wagon, people bump into each other, Wazir added, and therefore get bruises or such, “so all the people in the car went to the hospital and considered themselves all injured.” 

Those who can be considered “injured” are four to five cases, Wazir continued, assuring the public that the remaining cases will be discharged from the hospital in the next few days. 

Another patient died shortly after the minister’s statements.

Wazir also blamed the incident on human error. “So far we can say that the accident was caused by a human factor, but the Public Prosecution will determine what happened exactly," Wazir said, stressing that the incident was not due to technical complications.

Stressing that the switch feature works manually, Wazir also accused the switch operator, prior to the beginning of the investigations.

Informed sources later told the privately owned Al-Masry-Al-Youm on condition of anonymity that the prosecution’s investigations likewise showed that the incident was caused by the “switch operator,” who was reportedly detained and interrogated by security authorities.

Accordingly, the prosecution ordered the formation of two committees with the aim of inspecting both trains to determine their operability and safety features as well as the cause of the crash.

Similar incidents, including the 2019 train crash at Cairo’s Ramses Railway Station which resulted in 20 deaths and 45 critical injuries, were also attributed to human error. 

Railway traffic primarily relies on four key accident-prevention measures to ensure safety. These multi-layered safety mechanisms are theoretically designed to prevent train accidents. However, a combination of factors has rendered them largely procedural, leaving safety on Egypt's railways dependent on the diligence of overworked and underpaid conductors to prevent errors.