350 dead due to train fire

At least 350 people are feared dead after a fire ripped through a passenger train in Egypt. Scores of children are among the victims.

The train was packed full of passengers travelling southwards from Cairo to Luxor, to be with their families for a religious holiday. It is believed that some passengers were using gas stoves to cook and these provoked a fire.

The fire tore through the train at lightning speed, being fanned by the draught from open windows. The windows were barred, meaning that the passengers were trapped inside, in the dark. Those who managed to escape only did so by jumping from the moving train using the doors.

Witnesses speak of hundreds of screaming people being burnt alive, trapped by the fire and the smoke. By the time the train stopped at Al-Ayyat, the worst accident in the history of Egypt’s railways had taken place.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru