CAIRO, 19 April 2007 — At least 18 Egyptian students were killed in a head-on collision between two trucks south of Cairo while on their way to school yesterday, police said. Another eight students, all between 15 and 16 years old, were injured in the early morning accident that took place on the desert highway between Cairo and the southern city of Assiut.
The dead students included 17 girls and a boy. Security sources had earlier said all 16 dead were students. According to the Interior Ministry, a truck carrying sand swerved into the oncoming lane to pass another car and then struck a pickup truck carrying the students.
About 6,000 people die and 30,000 are injured in road accidents each year in Egypt. The Transport Ministry says they are the second-highest cause of death in the country and experts estimate they cause annual losses of up to 350 million dollars. Traffic regulations are often badly enforced while maintenance of vehicles is also poor. Many of the country’s coastal and desert roads allow for high speeds and accidents caused by reckless overtaking are frequent.
Reckless driving and poor road conditions are responsible for many road crashes in Egypt, and a spate of rail and road accidents has sparked public anger at what critics call the government’s failure to enforce safety standards.
Meanwhile, five Egyptian ports in the Gulf of Suez closed on Tuesday because a sandstorm over much of the country reduced visibility, port officials said. Cairo’s international airport closed for more than four hours when visibility on one runway fell below 100 meters, and then partially reopened, airport sources said. Some pilots started landing using night navigation equipment and others flew to other airports.
