Cairo: Six carriages in a passenger train separated and stopped while the train continued its journey in southern Egypt, local media reported.
The 13-car train was heading from Cairo to Aswan in southern Egypt on Friday when the six rear carriages separated shortly before a station in the southern city of Assiut where the train later stopped.
Alerted, rail officials and civil defence personnel rushed to the site. The stationary carriages were then pulled by a locomotive and re-aligned to the train that later resumed its journey after technical inspection. The incident caused one-hour disruption in rail traffic, but resulted in no casualties, Nabil Al Teebi, a local official said.
Technical problem
The Transport Ministry opened a probe into the incident, according to a source at the Ministry. “A preliminary investigation showed that the separation happened because of a sudden technical problem,” the source told Egyptian newspaper Al Watan.
The incident came a week after two passenger trains collided in Sohag, another southern city, leaving 22 people dead.
Earlier this week, Egypt’s chief prosecutor ordered the remand of eight rail officials, including the drivers of the two trains, pending further investigations into the tragedy.
