Seven dead, 112 injured in Egypt train collision near El-Ayyat

Seven people died and 112 were injured when two passenger trains collided near the city of El-Ayyat in Egypt on the morning of November 8, according to the country's health ministry. The casualty figures, released the same day, make the crash one of the deadliest rail accidents in the country in recent months.

The ministry's statement set out the emerging human toll: "As a result of the train collision near the city of El-Ayyat, seven people died, 112 others were injured." Of those hurt, 45 had already been discharged from hospitals by the time of the announcement, and the ministry added that seven more patients were expected to be released soon.

That leaves roughly 60 injured people still receiving hospital treatment, a figure that hospitals in the area will continue to process in the coming days as the investigation gathers pace.

What happened on the line?

The accident occurred when a train traveling from Giza to Fayoum rammed the rear of a train traveling from Cairo to Aswan, near the town of El-Ayyat, which lies south of the Egyptian capital. The collision derailed several cars.

The mechanism described — one train striking the rear of another — points to a potential spacing or signaling failure between the two services, but no official cause has yet been established. Egypt's Prosecutor General's Office has opened an investigation into the circumstances and causes of the accident, and its findings will determine whether the collision is attributed to operational error, technical failure or a combination of factors.

The route involved carries long-distance passenger traffic on one of Egypt's busiest corridors, connecting Cairo with destinations in Upper Egypt, including Aswan, and the fertile Fayoum region west of the Nile. A rear-end collision on this line affects not only the passengers on the two trains but also the wider schedule of services using the corridor.

What has the response been?

Egyptian President Abdelfattah el-Sisi extended his condolences to the families of those killed in the accident. He instructed officials to investigate the crash and to bring to responsibility all those, in his words, "whose criminal negligence led to the tragedy."

The phrase signals that the presidency is treating the accident as a potential failure of human responsibility rather than an unavoidable event, raising the prospect of criminal proceedings against railway staff or officials depending on what the prosecution finds.

Meanwhile, the Russian embassy in Cairo said that, according to preliminary data, there are no Russian nationals among those killed or injured in the crash. Diplomatic missions in Egypt routinely verify the involvement of their citizens after major transport accidents, and the embassy's statement was based on initial information.

What comes next?

The Prosecutor General's Office will examine the circumstances of the collision, including the movements of both trains in the minutes before impact and the condition of signaling equipment on the stretch near El-Ayyat. Until its conclusions are published, the exact sequence of events that derailed several cars and left 119 people dead or injured remains under investigation.