Egyptian officials resignation accepted over train catastrophe
Egypt, Local, 2/23/2002

The Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Friday morning accepted the resignation of the Egyptian minister of transport over the train catastrophe which took place on Thursday and claimed the life of 373 persons and other hundreds were reported as wounded.

Meantime the Egyptian prime minister Atef Ebeid accepted also on Friday the resignation of the chairman of the railways commission in Egypt Ahmad al-Sharif.

However, the operations for searching for new bodied at the site of the incident were suspended on Friday ultimately after collecting remains of scattered bodies in the burned train. On Sunday, the bodies of 241 unknown burnt persons will be buried in collective burial in al-Basateen area in Cairo province.

An Egyptian official source said on Friday that the nature of the fire and ways it took place resulted from an electric shortage in the last wagon in the train. He ruled out the possibility of the occurrence of the fire as a result of a "gas cylinder" explosion because there is no cafeteria serving food and soft drinks for passengers at third class trains.

The source added that the Egyptian prime minister Atif Ebeid decided to form technical and engineering committees to review security and safety measures in all transport means in Egypt.

Previous Stories:
  Integrated teams of forensic experts to identify train victims   (2/21/2002)
  Egyptian Red Crescent to offer immediate aid to Ayyat train victims   (2/21/2002)
  Ebeid inspects incident scene   (2/21/2002)
  Mubarak expresses deep regret offers condolences to families of victims   (2/21/2002)

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