Egypt: 80 feared dead in ferry collision

  1. Posted on Saturday 5 December 2009 - 10:45
    KingsleyKobo
    Image of KingsleyKobo
    Kingsley Kobo, AfricaNews reporter in Abidjan, Ivory Coast
    Two passenger ferries collided on the Nile River in northern Egypt, with about 80 people reported to be missing. Security and ambulance sources said there were at least a dozen survivors from the accident that occurred near the northern city of Rachid, and that some three bodies had been recovered from the river.
    Egypt
    According to a press release from Saudi Arabia’s media, Al Arabiya, one of the ferries broke in half and sank after the collision, while the other overturned.

    The governor of the northern Beheira province said there were no confirmed fatalities but a security source, according to Reuters, confirmed the three casualties, saying at least a dozen injured people had been taken to hospital and some 80 were yet to be found.

    It was not clear how many passengers were on the two vessels but a series of road, rail and sea accidents in Egypt in recent years has triggered an outcry over the government's handling of transport safety.

    In February 2006, a ferry in the Red Sea caught fire and sank en route to Egypt from Saudi Arabia, killing 1,034 of the 1,400 people on board, many of them poor Egyptians.

    Egypt's transport minister, Mohamed Mansour, resigned in October over a train crash in south of Cairo which killed 18 people.

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