CAIRO: The total death toll of the pile up at a railway level crossing accident Wednesday, has reached 41 people, four of which have not yet been identified.
An additional 38 were injured, with several in critical condition. They were admitted into the Armed Forces Hospital in Maadi immediately.
Eight people in serious condition were entered to intensive care, two of them in critical condition, Brigadier General Doctor Ahmed Abdel-Halim, director of the Armed Forces Hospital in Maadi, told a press conference Thursday.
The eight are suffering from internal hemorrhage, cerebral concussion, intestines damages, and backbone fractures, he explained.
An Armed Forces Helicopter was used to transport the eight casualties to Cairo, while some of the injured received medical treatment immediately on the site of the accident, he added.
“The first injured reached the hospital at 3 am, and the last one arrived at 6:30 am on Thursday. Abdel-Halim said that all facilities of the Armed Forces have been mobilized to transport the injured and provide them with aid and also to evacuate fatalities.
The police investigation on Thursday morning confirmed that the cause of the accident was a trailer with faulty brakes that collided into vehicles at the level-crossing, pushing them into the path of a moving train.
At approximately 5 pm Wednesday, the trailer ploughed into two cars, a bus, a truck and a minibus at the Folka level crossing, 70 km east of Marsa Matrouh governorate on the Mediterranean coast, pushing them into the path of a moving passenger train. Two train carriages overturned and another two were derailed. The Minister of Transportation blamed the accident on the extreme speed at which the trailer was moving in a local TV interview on Wednesday.
The governor of Marsa Matrouh, Saad Mohamed Khalil, said victims would be immediate compensated.
According to news reports, the family of a married victim will receive LE 5,000, single victims LE 1,000 and those who were injured will get LE 300 immediately and an additional LE 500 after they recover.
On his part, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif asked Minister of Health Hatem El-Gabaly, to provide all the health services necessary for those injured in the accident and to speed up the procedures for issuing death certificates for the victims.
Trailers have repeatedly been the cause of tragic road accidents in Egypt, which led to a ban on the use of trailers in a recently amended traffic law. The law bans the use of truck trailers, the importing or manufacturing of trailers, with a grace period of four years for their owners to replace them with other cargo transport means.
“This article is completely for safety measures, Ezzat Badawy, deputy head of the transportation and telecommunications committee at the PA, previously told Daily News Egypt. “These trailers currently cause 37 percent of road accidents, he added.
