Two killed and three injured in Egypt train crash

Two people died and three were injured when a train collided with a pickup truck in Egypt on Tuesday, the health ministry said.

The two who died were both aged 25, while the injured were 28, 32 and 52, Ministry of Health spokesman Dr Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said .

The accident took place in Giza, at the Monsha'et El Kanater station and the injured were taken to a nearby hospital, he said. The cause was not specified.

Some of the injured had fractured jaws and limbs, as well as flesh wounds.

The collision is one of several deadly train accidents in Egypt this year, despite authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s rundown railway services.

Between 2004 and 2016, an average of 1,041 train accidents occurred every year, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics.

In June, two people died and six were injured when a freight train hit a minibus parked too close to the tracks in the southern Cairo suburb of Helwan.

A spate of accidents in March and April killed at least 43 people and left hundreds injured, prompting arrests and criminal investigations.

Transport Minister Kamel El Wazir said 225 billion Egyptian pounds ($14.32bn) has been set aside to upgrade the railway system by 2023.

At the TransMea exhibition in Cairo earlier this month, Mr Wazir said 500 of 1,300 new passenger railway coaches had arrived and 800 kilometres out of 10,000km of railway tracks had been renovated so far.