EGYPTIAN TRAIN DISASTER.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20225, 1 May 1931, Page 11

EGYPTIAN TRAIN DISASTER.

FIRE IN CARRIAGES. Many deaths and casualties. (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION?—BT EiECTEIC j TZIiEUHAfcIt—COPtBIGHT.) CAIRO, April 29. Forty-otto pel-sons are dead and forty-one injured as the result of tho worst disaster that has ever occurred on the Egyptian railways. An express excursion train, crowde/i with holidtty-iitfikerts. caught fire bi> tWeeift Caifo and Alexandria. Passeiigerfe franticallywaved Kafj®spts ffoin the windows In && .attempt to attract tins dnvef'g attention, but the train, went oil at fuii speed, fanning the tlame3, Which (spread with terrific rapidity. The train was ibade tip of some of the oldest rolling stock on tho State railways, and the. rackets coaches flared like tindery There Were indescribable ecdilea of panic. The screaming passenger® ih threo coaches were either suffocated burned or chanced jumping out; The line near Beiiha was strewn with rtiaiiried bodies. Many of those who leaped out ttote bfttiMht ih the Uriels, decapitated, and th&fi- litflbs tofti fetf. The trairt travelled "a considerable distatitie before & signhlmaii &t B&ftha noticed the flaimeS tttid ifet the sigtldls at danger; The victinMi Weffe all tianjj goitifc to Cairo for the Bairari festival. Thfe dead include ten children, who were either trampled ott in the packed Mmp&rtihente or incinerated. The fire is believed to have beert dbe to an over-heated axle of the third--class rear carriage. Tlie driver has been arrested. : PANIC-STRld&lßft MOTHERS, (Received May Ist, 1.12 a.m.) . \ ' OAIEO, April 30. The burning train casualties were 46 killed, 41 ittjuted. Many of the burned victims wdre not recognisable, including teii children. A number of children were fatally iiijurcd thtough their frantic mothers throwing them frbm the train windows.