EGYPTIAN DISASTER

Evening Star, Issue 20780, 30 April 1931, Page 10

EGYPTIAN DISASTER

TRAIN ON FIRE AT FULL SPEED LINE STREWN WITH MAIMED BODIES Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright CAIRO, April 29. (Received April 30, at 1.5 p.m.)-Forty-one people arc dead and fortyone"wore injured in the worst disaster recorded on the Egyptian railways. An express excursion tram, crowded with holiday makers, caught fire between Cairo and Alexandria. The passengers frantically waved garments from the windows in an attempt to attract the driver’s attention, hut the train went on at full speed, fanning the flames, which spread with terrific rapidity.

The tram was made up of somo of tho oldest rolling stock in the State railways. The rackety coaches flared like tinder. There were indescribable scenes. The passengers in three of the coaches were either suffocated or burnt to death, or chanced jumping out. Tho line near Bon ha was strewn with maimed bodies. Many of those who leapt put were caught by the wheels and decapitated, or their limbs were torn off. The train travelled for a considerable distance before the signalman at Benha noticed the flames and set the signals at danger. Tho victims were all Egyptians going to Cairo for tho Bairam festival. Tho dead include ten children, who were either trampled on in the packed compartments or incinerated.

Tho fire is believed to be due to an overheated axle of a third class realcarriage. Tho driver has been arrested.