Fire swept through a crowded midnight train near Cairo today, killing 373 passengers in the deadliest disaster of Egypt's more than 150-year-old rail history.
People jumped from windows and doors to escape the flames and smoke that engulfed the train as it rolled on for several kilometers before coming to a stop, security sources said.
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Railroad workers beside the passenger train that caught fire. Photo: Reuters
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"We pushed each other and we were suffocating from the smoke. We threw each other out the windows," one survivor said from his hospital bed.
It took fire fighters several hours to put out the blaze which raged through seven carriages of the train near the town of al-Ayatt, about 45 miles south of the Egyptian capital.
Charred bodies lay trapped in carriages and between the bars of windows. Their features were burned black beyond recognition.
The official Middle East News Agency said preliminary investigations showed the fire started when a passenger tried to light a small gas stove.
Egyptians often use portable stoves to brew their own tea and coffee on board the train.
The train had been heading south from Cairo to Luxor in the south of the country. Traffic on the track, the only rail link between Cairo and Upper Egypt, came to a stop for several hours.
Security sources said all the dead were believed to be Egyptians. Witnesses said the train was overcrowded with people heading for the countryside to spend the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday with families. The holiday is the biggest of the Muslim year.
Social Affairs Minister Amina el-Gindy, quoted by MENA, said the government would pay up to €720 in emergency assistance to the families of the dead and those injured in the accident.
The death toll is Egypt's highest in a train disaster since a collision in 1995 killed 75 people.