Upper Egypt Road Crash Kills 9

Nine people were killed and 30 others injured in a road crash Tuesday on the Upper Egypt road.

A bus, travelling from Luxor – in southern Egypt – to Cairo, crashed into a truck loaded with marble, the interior ministry’s media centre stated. The bus also caught fire as a result of the crash.

Injured victims were transferred to Beni Suef General Hospital, in central Egypt, while authorities arrived at the site to clear it for traffic.

Egyptian traffic laws are not strictly implemented and roads have long suffered from lack of maintenance, and deadly traffic accidents are frequent nationwide.

A report, drawn up in April by the ministries of transport and interior, said that large trucks were to blame for 40 percent of traffic accidents.

It also put the number of road accidents that took place in Egypt from 2008 to 2012 at 100,000, with 33,000 killed and another 150,000 injured.

In late August, ten people were killed in an accident on the Cairo – Ismailia highway and 19 others were killed in another accident involving two microbuses in Luxor.

More recently, dozens were injured in a number of bus crashes near Hurghada, on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.

Source : Ahram online