CAIRO: Eight American tourists were killed and 21 injured on Sunday when their bus collided with a truck near the southern Egyptian city of Aswan, police and the official MENA news agency said.
The bus, which was carrying 37 tourists from the United States, was headed to the ancient Egyptian Abu Simbel temples when it collided with a damaged truck parked on the side of the road, MENA said.
A police official said six of the dead were women. The bus driver and a tourist guide were also injured in the crash, which occurred early in the morning about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from Aswan.
Four tourists were in critical condition, the police official said, adding that the injured were taken to a military hospital in Aswan.
The US embassy said in a statement that it was "deeply saddened by the traffic accident in Aswan that has led to deaths and injuries among American tourists." It did not provide a toll.
It said the injured were being moved by military transport to Cairo. The police official said some of the injured tourists would be airlifted in the afternoon to a hospital in Cairo that often treats injured tourists.
An official of Misr Tours, which was running the bus service, said the accident occurred around dawn while it was still dark shortly after the bus left Aswan.
The official said the group was part of a larger tour of 116 American tourists who were traveling in three buses.
The other buses did not continue to Abu Simbel, and instead returned to Asawn, he said, declining to be identified.
The Seventy-nine tourists on board two other buses in the convoy were unharmed, MENA reported.
Traffic accidents occur frequently in Egypt, often because of poor road condition and lax regulations.
The government estimates that there are 8,000 road accidents a year in the country.
The US State Department warns on its website that traveling on Egyptian highways can be dangerous.
Eighteen French tourists were injured when their bus overturned on the same two-lane desert road in January.
The 3,000 year-old Great Temple at Abu Simbel, known for its four colossal statues, was built during the reign of Ramses II and was dedicated to the god Amun. It is considered one of the most beautiful ancient monuments in Egypt.
The temples there were relocated to their present location, about 300 kilometers from Aswan, in the 1960s to prevent them from being submerged by rising waters from the Aswan Dam which was under construction.
An unidentified injured tour bus passenger is moved from an Aswan hospital into an ambulance headed to Aswan airport, to be flown to a hospital in Cairo, after a tour bus crashed into a truck. (AP Photo)
