Scores feared dead in Nile boats' collision

Cairo: Scores of locals are feared dead after two motorboats collided Friday night in the Nile off the province of Rashid, north of Cairo, officials said on Saturday.

Around 13 people were rescued from drowning as one of the two boats capsized after the collision blamed on high speed and reckless steering, added officials and witnesses.

Frogmen sent by the Navy to the scene are combing the waters for survivors and bodies.

According to survivors, each boat was carrying more than 50 people to ferry them from one village to another across the river. Local officials said such boats are licensed to carry 10 people only.

"I was on the way back to my house with my child and mother after seeing a doctor when the skippers of the two boats started to race against each other while hurling jokes at each other," Sabah Ali, 30, told the evening newspaper Al Messa. "In no time, we saw, much to our horror, the two boats colliding and the other boat flipped over," she added.

Sabah, who is now staying in Rashid Hospital, is one of 13 people who were rescued from the mishap. "People on the nearby bank rushed to rescue us. My child, mother and I were among those who miraculously escaped death."

Police said they had arrested the owners and skippers of the two boats and that they are being investigated.

"The number of people believed missing reaches 50 people," said Mohammad Sharawi, the governor of Beheira, to which Rashid is affiliated. "Some commuters were saved and the injured were taken to hospital. Rescue teams are searching for others," he told Egyptian TV.

"We have been accustomed to such tragedies for long years," Ahmad Nasar, a villager told Egyptian television. "Every year tens of people from our village and the nearby villages lose their lives as a result of such catastrophes from unseaworthy boats whose owners make a lot of money by exceeding the passenger limit."

Inhabitants of several villages overlooking the Nile depend on ferryboats to transport them from one side to the other.

More than 1,000 people, mostly Egyptian expatriates, were killed in 2006 when their ship sailing from the Saudi port of Debaa sank near the Egyptian port town of Safagaa.Cairo: An Egyptian official says it appears nobody drowned after two passenger boats collided on the Nile.