Egypt: 20 dead in truck-bus crash

Cairo: At least 20 people had died in a collision between a truck and a passenger bus in the city of Assiut, about 380 kilometres south of Cairo, local authorities said Wednesday.

Three others were wounded in the crash that occurred late Tuesday on a road linking Assiut to the governorate of the Red Sea, the Assiut authorities added.

The accident also left both vehicles charred according to pictures released from the scene.

Thirty-one ambulances were dispatched to the site of the tragedy, the cause of which is not clear yet.

Assiut Governor Maj. Gen. Essam Saad inspected the site, as the wreckage of the two vehicles was being removed and traffic detoured from the road, local media reported. The collision comes less than a month after a train crash in the southern city of Sohag claiming 22 lives.

In recent years, Egypt has built a network of roads and toughened traffic penalties in an attempt to curb road crashes in the nation of over 100 million people.