Two trains collide near Giza, killing seven and injuring more than 100

Two trains crashed south of Cairo on Sunday, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 100, according to Egypt's railway authority. The collision happened between Kafr Ammar and Al-Raqqa stations in Al-Ayyat, near Giza, when a service heading from Giza to Fayoum slammed into the back of another train bound for Aswan that was sitting still on the tracks. Carriages derailed and tumbled down an embankment, and prosecutors warned the toll could still climb.

Rescue crews and ordinary passengers scrambled through the wreckage together. Footage from the scene showed people peering into overturned carriages hunting for survivors, while one carriage appeared to have been torn in two. Hospitals across the area were put on heightened alert as casualties poured in, with Egypt's health minister Dr Khaled Abdel Ghaffar saying patients were being treated for broken bones and head injuries. The driver of one of the trains was among the dead, the ministry confirmed.

President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi said he had ordered the state to investigate what went wrong and to hold anyone found negligent accountable. Trains between Giza and Upper Egypt were suspended while cranes were brought in to clear the mangled carriages from the tracks.

This stretch of rail has seen this before, and the country knows it. The crash site sits close to where Egypt's deadliest train disaster unfolded in February 2002, when a fire ripped through a Cairo-to-Luxor passenger service; that train kept rolling for roughly nine kilometres (5.6 miles) before stopping, and more than 370 people were officially reported killed, with some estimates going higher. Two more crashes in the area in 2009 killed dozens.

By Sunday evening, anger was spilling into the streets, with calls in Egypt for the transport minister to step down over the latest disaster. For a rail network that has now buried victims in the same corner of the country across three separate decades, the demand for answers is only getting louder.