17 killed in Cairo train derailment

17 people were killed and 117 others injured when two railroad passenger carriages derailed in Badrasheen, south of Cairo on Tuesday morning. The Chairman of the National Authority for Railways, Engineer Hussein Zakaria, immediately went to the scene. In a statement, Zakaria explained that "two carriages from a train transporting military conscripts from Assiut to Cairo fell from the railway in Badrasheen." He denied media reports of a crash between two trains. Deputy Minister of Health in Cairo, Dr. Abdel Nasser Saqr said that "the number of victims of the accident has increased to 17 dead and 117 injured so far." Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim inspected the site of the accident in Badrashin. He demanded that civil service forces "increase their efforts to save the lives of the victims," and called the police deployed at the scene to "work quickly to open corridors for ambulances to transfer the victims to hospital,” in light of the large numbers of citizens gathering at the scene to help in the rescue efforts. The Egyptian head of the ambulance emergency service Dr. Mohammed Sultan predicted an increase in the number of those injured in the incident, explaining that "25 ambulances attended the site to transport the injured and dead."   According to an official source from the Council of Ministers, "the Minister of Transport, Dr. Hatem Abdul Latif and the Governor of Giza, Dr. Ali Abdulrahman went immediately to the site to oversee the rescue operations." An official source from the National Railways Authority said that "the movement of trains in Upper Egypt has halted following the accident.” He confirmed that train services will resume following the removal of the two carriages involved from the track.