Car explosion kills 19, injures 30 in Egypt

Nineteen people died and 30 were injured in an explosion resulting from a car crash in central Cairo, Egypt’s health ministry said early on Monday.

There was no official statement indicating that the explosion was an attack.

The blast happened when a car driving against traffic on Cairo’s Nile corniche road collided with three other cars, the interior ministry said in a separate statement.

It triggered a blaze that forced the partial evacuation of the nearby National Cancer Institute, the health ministry said.

Egypt’s public prosecutor is investigating the cause of the incident, the report said, but there was no official statement indicating whether the explosion was a terrorist attack.

Egypt has battled Islamic jihadists for years in the Sinai Peninsula in an insurgency that has occasionally spilled over to the mainland, hitting minority Christians or tourists.

Monday’s explosion comes as Egypt’s vital tourism industry is showing signs of recovery after years of stagnation due of the political turmoil and violence that followed the 2011 uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.

REUTERS