The death toll from Saturday morning’s fatal collision between a train and an Egyptian kindergarten school bus in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Assiut has risen to 50, Assiut’s governor Yehia Keshk announced Saturday afternoon. 18 are also injured, including seven that are in a critical condition.
In a televised statement Saturday afternoon, President Mohamed Morsi offered his condolences to the families of the victims and promised financial compensation and emotional support as well as an immediate investigation into the fatal accident.
“I have decided to refer the relevant officials to the public prosecution for swift investigations in order to identify those responsible,” the president said, adding that he accepted the resignation of the minister of transportation and the head of the Railway Authority.
The school bus was carrying 60 children, reportedly aged between four and six years old, when it was hit by the train as it passed over the railway crossing. The dead are mostly children, in addition the bus driver and his assistant were also killed, Egypt’s Ministry of Interior confirmed.
State-owned news agency MENA announced that Prime Minister Hisham Qandil is on his way to the village of Manfalout, where the accident took place, accompanied by both the minister of health and minister of education to look into the cause of the collision.
Egypt’s prosecutor-general Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud has ordered an investigation into the minister of transportation, the head of the Railway Authority and the crossing guard who was on duty at the time of the crash.
According to the latest press statement from the country’s Railway Authority, the bus driver drove over the crossing even though the warning lights and sirens were on, in full view of the guard and a traffic policeman.
Meanwhile, acting director of the Railway Authority Hussein Zakaria told Al-Ahram Arabic language news website that families of the school children gathered at the location of the collision are preventing railway workers from removing the wreckage from the track.
“People are currently blocking the road, some are collecting the remaining body parts,” Osama Seddik, an eyewitness currently at the scene, told Ahram Online.
According to Seddik, the families in the village allege that the railway crossing guard was asleep when the bus carrying the children drove over the track.
Seddik also said that police only arrived around 9am although the accident occurred two hours earlier. He added that only one ambulance was sent as a first response to the accident.
“By the time they sent a well-equipped ambulance, the children had died,” added Seddik.
Several families of the killed children are there on the scene, blocking the road. Others are at the local morgue, and some are taking their children’s remains to be buried.
Egypt’s Minister of Transportation Mohamed Rashad El-Metini resigned following the accident, saying that the responsibility ultimately falls on him. Head of the Railway Authority, Mostafa Qenawi, also submitted his resignation.
In 2002, after a similar train accident in the Giza governorate village of Al-Ayyat left 18 dead, Morsi, who was an MP at the time, vehemently criticised the response of Egypt’s former prime minister Atef Ebeid and ultimately held him responsible.
“The accident reflects the massive neglect by high officials, including the head of Egypt’s Railway Authority, the minister of transportation and the prime minister,” Morsi said at the time, further voicing his discontent as only lower-ranking employees were held accountable.
According to a report published in July 2011 by the Central Authority for Public Transport, road and rail accidents claimed over 7,000 lives in Egypt in 2010 — a rise of 7.9 per cent over the previous year.
