CAIRO, 24 February — The Egypt train disaster that led to the deaths of some 373 people was caused by a short-circuit, a government newspaper reported yesterday, quoting a commission of inquiry.
Al-Akhbar said the commission had confirmed that the aging train’s carriages were not equipped with fire alarms, fire extinguishers or emergency brakes. The panel, tasked by chief prosecutor Maher Abdel Wahed with investigating the causes of the disaster, also noted that there were no emergency windows.
Most of those who died in the disaster were burned to death, trapped in overpacked carriages on the southbound train from Cairo early Wednesday. Others died after managing to escape through barred windows and jammed doors and jumping off the rapidly moving train, though some survived the jump. The government daily Al-Ahram said Friday the fire was probably started by an electrical short-circuit. Quoting a police source close to the inquiry, the paper said the theory that a cooking stove in one of the carriages had sparked the blaze was virtually ruled out.
Many passengers on train 832, seven of whose carriages caught fire, paid the equivalent of less than one dollar to travel between Cairo and Aswan, in the south of the country.
