Two passenger trains have collided in northern Egypt, killing at least 36 people and injuring dozens more, health officials say.
One train was travelling from Cairo and the other from Port Said when they hit head-on in the northern coastal city of Alexandria, local media report.
BBC reports that emergency teams are at the scene. It is not yet known what caused the two trains to collide.
Deadly train accidents in Egypt are rare but not unheard of.
Footage broadcast on Egyptian state broadcaster Nile TV shows one of the trains partly keeled over in the crash, with emergency services transferring the injured to ambulances.
More than 120 people were injured in the crash, the country’s health ministry said. All hospitals in the region have been placed on high alert.
The death toll was initially put at 21, but this was later revised upwards by the health ministry.
Egypt’s transport minister has ordered an investigation into the crash, Nile TV reports.
In 2013, dozens of people were killed and when a train crashed into a minibus and other vehicles south of Cairo.
Egypt’s deadliest rail accident occurred near the capital in 2002, when a fire ripped through a crowded train killing more than 370 people.
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